Back from a brief respite in Hawaii. One might think coming back to DC in March would be tough, however the weather is almost better here in DC! Its been a gorgeous spring week, yet I'm happy to be inside. This has been a rare 2 week stint with no traveling for interviews or work. I'm finally back at the bench (and computer) to finish analyzing experiments and start new ones.
I also got result back from my first nanostring experiment. Nanostring is a new technology that directly counts individual molecules of mRNA. This means no bias from amplification nor making cDNA. The technology achieves this amazing feat by using a two probe per gene system. One gene-specific probe has a biotin anchor. The other probe has a unique fluorescent barcode - i.e. red-orange-green-orange-yellow or yellow-blue-red-red-green, etc. The probes are mixed with the mRNA and then immobilized via the anchor on a substrate. The barcodes are all aligned in the same direction by a current. Then the sample can be imaged and counted.
Although the changes weren't big, I did get a couple of interesting genes whose expression was significantly correlated with changes in arm length. Again, showing the power of this technology. Too bad at least one of them was Wnt-signalling related. Everyone in the lab is working on a Wnt (some on the same Wnt). I've flat out refused up until now... Wnt signaling is crazy complicated and still really controversial. It looks like I might have to finally dive into the mess.
(I am not related to Nanostring Technology, Inc and have only used their product once. I have yet to verify the results using qPCR and/or in situ hybridization.)
No comments:
Post a Comment