CrossGen - Virtual Microarrays for Analysis of Species with Unsequenced Genomes

CrossGen uses proprietary technology developed at the University of Nottingham to construct virtual microarrays for the gene expression analysis of species with uncharacterised genomes due to their lack of genomic sequence information.

Orthologous microarrays

CrossGen provide solutions for cross-species analysis using virtual arrays. The company use their proprietary algorithm to identify orthologous sets of genes for cross-species analysis of genetically uncharacterised species, used in the preclinical assessment of pharmaceutical and chemical candidates.

GeneChip® virtual arrays – sequence analysis to identify orthologous probes

Using comparative genome hybridisation, genomic DNA of the subsequence genome is hybridised to a reference GeneChip® array. Our algorithm uses hybridisation efficiency, across replicate arrays as a measure of sequence homology to identify orthologous probes for virtual microarray construction. These virtual arrays are affymetrix GeneChip® system compatible, requiring affymetrix instrumentation for processing.

Toxicogenomic solutions for researching uncharacterised species

The new field of toxicogenomics may save pharmaceutical companies millions of dollars and several years by improving the toxicological characterisation of drugs before they reach clinical trials. Current toxicogenomic technologies are limited to a few well characterised laboratory animal species with complete sequence information. At CrossGen we extend these toxicogenomic solutions to researchers working with uncharacterised species.

Our virtual microarrays have been used by our clients for safety biomarker discovery, to elucidate potential human risks and to identify the specificity of the toxicity response.

Species which previously did not benefit from GeneChip® technology can be analysed on GeneChip® platform using CrossGen technology. This is of particular benefit to the pharmaceutical industry where animal models are used to develop drugs for both human and animals. There are a limited number of GeneChip® microarrays for animals.

The CrossGen technology provides a cost effective method of selecting the most appropriate animal model for pre-clinical toxicogenomic assessment of drug candidates.

Surrogate biomarker discovery in uncharacterised and subsequence genomes of animal species is now feasible with the CrossGen technology.

Single-platform microarray analysis

Cross-platform analysis of microarray data can be problematic as a source of data variability. Cross-platform analysis is necessitated by the variety of microarray technologies in the market. CrossGen technology eliminates cross-platform analysis by enabling microarray analysis on one platform, namely affymetrix GeneChip® arrays.

The CrossGen technology, therefore, eliminates the requirement for large investments in capital, and time for in-house custom microarray manufacture with robotics.

New procedures or equipment are not required with the CrossGen technology since the familiarity and utility of the GeneChip® technology is retained. The user is provided with a virtual microarray that identifies the co-ordinates for a number of probes in the affymetrix probe set for each gene.

CrossGen cross-species virtual arrays are compatible with third-party software used for affymetrix GeneChip® data analysis; hence, all downstream analysis procedure is identical with GeneChip® data.