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Glossary of terms used in the present review |
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| Term |
Description |
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| Microarray |
Microscope slide or chip with immobilized probes, usually cDNA, BAC, or oligo probes |
| cDNA |
Complementary DNA: a DNA that is complementary to a given RNA, which serves as a template for synthesis of the DNA in the presence of reverse transcriptase. When printed on microarray slides, they are usually 0.5–2 kilobases (kb) |
| BAC |
Bacterial artificial chromosome: a DNA construct, based on a fertility plasmid, used for transforming and cloning in bacteria, usually Escherichia coli. Its usual insert size is 150 kb, with a range from 100 to 300 kb |
| Oligo |
Oligonucleotide: a relatively short single-stranded nucleic acid chain, usually 20–80 base pairs |
| Gene expression profiling |
Global analysis of transcribed RNA in a tissue of interest. Usually based on the cohybridization of differentially labeled test and reference cDNAs to probes on microarray slides |
| SAGE |
Serial analysis of gene expression: generates a library of expressed genes by taking a raw count of sequence tags, each representing a transcript in the RNA population |
| CGH |
Comparative genomic hybridization: comparative hybridization of differentially labeled DNA of interest (e.g. tumor) and a reference (any genomic DNA) to normal metaphase chromosomes |
| Array-CGH |
Array-based CGH: comparative hybridization of differentially labeled DNA of interest (e.g. tumor) and a reference (any genomic DNA) to probes on a microarray slide |
Rennstam and Hedenfalk Breast Cancer Research 2006 8:213 doi:10.1186/bcr1528 |
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