Print Your Own DNA

Research paper p. 438-441
News & Views p. 384

Print your own DNA

Bubble-Jet printers have found a new application. This time they have moved out of the office and into the laboratory. A team of Japanese researchers, led by Nobuko Yamamoto, has adapted the Bubble-Jet printing head for printing spots of DNA onto glass slides to create microarrays. Although still in preliminary development, compared with the current pen-spotting method widely adopted for creating DNA microarrays, the Bubble-Jet approach may be more reliable and substantially increase the density of DNA spots that can be deposited on the array surface. Ultimately, this technology may enable the spotting of an entire mammalian genome on a single DNA chip.

Current formats for DNA microarrays include commercial chips created using photolithographic DNA synthesis or the robotic printing (via a pen) of DNA onto a chemically treated microscope slide. Each of these systems has its advantages, but neither combines optimal sensitivity, reproducibility, specificity, spot density, and cost.

In the new approach, Yamamoto's team set out to ascertain whether a Bubble-Jet printer head could be adapted for use in microarray synthesis. The process involves loading a dissolved DNA fragment of interest into the Bubble Jet printer head, which then heats the liquid up, producing a bubble that forces out a drop of DNA fragment solution onto the chip surface. In preliminary tests on a Bubble-Jet fabricated array of a fragment of the p53 tumor suppressor gene, the researchers were able to successfully distinguish single base mismatches from perfect matches,

In an accompanying commentary, Geoffrey Childs and his colleagues discuss significance of the new technology, comparing it with other formats and indicating refinements that will be required before the technology can be widely adopted.

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