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We have established proof of principle for the Indicator Cell Assay Platform™ (iCAP™), a broadly applicable tool for blood-based diagnostics that uses specifically-selected, standardized cells as biosensors, relying on their innate ability to integrate and respond to diverse signals present in patients' blood. To develop an assay, indicator cells are exposed in vitro to serum from case or control subjects and their global differential response patterns are used to train reliable, disease classifiers based on a small number of features. In a feasibility study, the iCAP detected pre-symptomatic disease in a murine model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with 94% accuracy (p-Value = 3.81E-6) and correctly identified samples from a murine Huntington's disease model as non-carriers of ALS. Beyond the mouse model, in a preliminary human disease study, the iCAP detected early stage Alzheimer's disease with 72% cross-validated accuracy (p-Value = 3.10E-3). For both assays, iCAP features were enriched for disease-related genes, supporting the assay's relevance for disease research.

Large scale human genetic studies require technologies for generating millions of genotypes with relative ease but also at a reasonable cost and with high accuracy. We describe a highly parallel method for genotyping single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), using generic high-density oligonucleotide arrays that contain thousands of preselected 20-mer oligonucleotide tags. First, marker-specific primers are used in PCR amplifications of genomic regions containing SNPs. Second, the amplification products are used as templates in single base extension (SBE) reactions using chimeric primers with 3' complementarity to the specific SNP loci and 5' complementarity to specific probes, or tags, synthesized on the array. The SBE primers, terminating one base before the polymorphic site, are extended in the presence of labeled dideoxy NTPs, using a different label for each of the two SNP alleles, and hybridized to the tag array. Third, genotypes are deduced from the fluorescence intensity ratio of the two colors. This approach takes advantage of multiplexed sample preparation, hybridization, and analysis at each stage. We illustrate and test this method by genotyping 44 individuals for 142 human SNPs identified previously in 62 candidate hypertension genes. Because the hybridization results are quantitative, this method can also be used for allele-frequency estimation in pooled DNA samples.

Single-nucleotide polymorphisms, as well as small insertions and deletions (here referred to collectively as simple nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs), comprise the largest set of sequence variants in most organisms. Positional cloning based on SNPs may accelerate the identification of human disease traits and a range of biologically informative mutations. The recent application of high-density oligonucleotide arrays to allele identification has made it feasible to genotype thousands of biallelic SNPs in a single experiment. It has yet to be established, however, whether SNP detection using oligonucleotide arrays can be used to accelerate the mapping of traits in diploid genomes. The cruciferous weed Arabidopsis thaliana is an attractive model system for the construction and use of biallelic SNP maps. Although important biological processes ranging from fertilization and cell fate determination to disease resistance have been modelled in A. thaliana, identifying mutations in this organism has been impeded by the lack of a high-density genetic map consisting of easily genotyped DNA markers. We report here the construction of a biallelic genetic map in A. thaliana with a resolution of 3.5 cM and its use in mapping Eds16, a gene involved in the defence response to the fungal pathogen Erysiphe orontii. Mapping of this trait involved the high-throughput generation of meiotic maps of F2 individuals using high-density oligonucleotide probe array-based genotyping. We developed a software package called InterMap and used it to automatically delimit Eds16 to a 7-cM interval on chromosome 1. These results are the first demonstration of biallelic mapping in diploid genomes and establish means for generalizing SNP-based maps to virtually any genetic organism.

Experimental genomics involves taking advantage of sequence information to investigate and understand the workings of genes, cells and organisms. We have developed an approach in which sequence information is used directly to design high-density, two-dimensional rays of synthetic oligonucleotides. The GeneChipe probe arrays are made using spatially patterned, light-directed combinatorial chemical synthesis and contain up to hundreds of thousands of different oligonucleotides on a small glass surface. The arrays have been designed and used for quantitative and highly parallel measurements of gene expression, to discover polymorphic loci and to detect the presence of thousands of alternative alleles. Here, we describe the fabrication of the arrays, their design and some specific applications to high-throughput genetic and cellular analysis.

A new approach to comparative nucleic acid sequence analysis is described that uses the ligation of DNA targets to high-density arrays containing complete sets of covalently attached oligonucleotides of length eight and nine. The combination of enzymatic or chemical ligation with a directed comparative analysis avoids many of the intrinsic difficulties associated with hybridization-based de novo sequence reconstruction methods described previously. Double-stranded DNA targets were fragmented and labeled to produce quasirandom populations of 5' termini suitable for ligation and detection on the arrays. Kilobase-size DNA targets were used to demonstrate that complete n-mer arrays can correctly verify known sequences and can determine the presence of sequence differences relative to a reference. By use of 9-mer arrays, sequences of 1.2-kb targets were verified with >99.9% accuracy. Mutations in target sequences were detected by directly comparing the intensity pattern obtained for an unknown with that obtained for a known reference sequence. For targets of moderate length (1.2 kb), 100% of the mutations in the queried sequences were detected with 9-mer arrays. For higher complexity targets (2.5 and 16.6 kb), a relatively high percentage of mutations (90% and 66%, respectively) were correctly identified with a low false-positive rate of <0.03 percent. The methods described provide a general approach to analyzing nucleic acid samples on the basis of the interpretation of sequence-specific patterns of hybridization and ligation on complete n-mer oligonucleotide arrays.

We have developed a high-density DNA probe array and accompanying biochemical and informatic methods to order clones from genomic libraries. This approach involves a series of enzymatic steps for capturing a set of short dispersed sequence markers scattered throughout a high-molecular-weight DNA. By this process, all the ambiguous sequences lying adjacent to a given Type IIS restriction site are ligated between two DNA adapters. These markers, once amplified and labeled by PCR, can be hybridized and detected on a high-density oligonucleotide array bearing probes complementary to all possible markers. The array is synthesized using light-directed combinatorial chemistry. For each clone in a genomic library, a characteristic set of sequence markers can be determined. On the basis of the similarity between the marker sets for each pair of clones, their relative overlap can be measured. The library can be sequentially ordered into a contig map using this overlap information. This new methodology does not require gel-based methods or prior sequence information and involves manipulations that should allow for easy adaptation to automated processing and data collection.

As the Human Genome Project and related efforts identify and determine the DNA sequences of human genes, it is important that highly reliable and efficient mechanisms are found to access individual genetic variation. It is only through a greater understanding of genetic diversity that the true benefit of the Human Genome Project will be realized. One approach, hybridization to high-density arrays of oligonucleotides, is a fast and effective means of accessing this genetic variation. Light-directed chemical synthesis has been used to generate miniaturized, high-density arrays of oligonucleotide probes. Application-specific oligonucleotide probe array designs have been developed for the rapid screening of characterized genes. Dedicated instrumentation and software have been developed for array hybridization, fluorescence detection and data acquisition and analysis. In a specific and challenging application, oligonucleotide probe arrays have been used to screen the reverse transcriptase and protease genes of the highly polymorphic HIV-1 genome to explore genetic diversity and detect mutations conferring resistance to antiviral drugs. Results from this application strongly suggest that oligonucleotide probe arrays will be a powerful tool for rapid investigations in sequence checking, pathogen detection, expression monitoring and DNA molecular recognition.

A significant bottleneck in the current DNA sequencing process is the manual editing of trace data generated by automated DNA sequencers. This step is used to correct base calls and to associate to each base call a confidence level. The confidence levels are used in the assembly process to determine overlaps and to resolve discrepancies in determining the consensus sequence. This single step may cost as much as 4 to 8 cents per finished base. We report an approach to automated trace editing using classification trees to detect and exploit context-based patterns in trace peak heights. Local base composition and nearby peak heights account for 80% of the variations in peak heights. Classification algorithms were developed to identify 37% of automated base calls that differ from the consensus sequence. With these algorithms, 12% of the base calls had confidence levels less than 90%.

Sequencing by hybridization (SBH) extracts local sequence information from a DNA fragment using hybridization with oligonucleotides and then reconstructs the sequence using the derived information. We describe an improvement to the SBH methodology which will allow it to work efficiently in the presence of hybridization errors. In particular, given a set of hybridizing probes, and the empirically derived rates of false positive and false negative hybridization, we can estimate the most likely DNA fragment to have produced the set of probes, and then estimate the probability that it generated the hybridization data. This methodology extends earlier results by identifying the most probable fragment to have generated the actual hybridization data. The methodology described will also generate longer unambiguous sequence fragments without the use of overlapping fragments.

We have used affinity panning of libraries of bacteriophages that display random octapeptide or dodecapeptide sequences at the N-terminus of the adsorption protein (pIII) to characterize peptides that bind to the endoplasmic reticulum chaperone BiP and to develop a scoring system that predicts potential BiP-binding sequences in naturally occurring polypeptides. BiP preferentially binds peptides containing a subset of aromatic and hydrophobic amino acids in alternating positions, suggesting that peptides bind in an extended conformation, with the side chains of alternating residues pointing into a cleft on the BiP molecule. Synthetic peptides with sequences corresponding to those displayed by BiP-binding bacteriophages bind to BiP and stimulate its ATPase activity, with a half-maximal concentration in the range 10-60 microM.