Millipore Introduces Microarray Kits

Millipore Corporation has announced its Magna ChIP2 chromatin immunoprecipitation Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) microarray kits, the company’s first kits to provide reagents, microarrays, and validated protocols for the entire ChIP-chip workflow. The kits allow researchers to map entire gene regulatory networks and patterns of epigenetic marks using microarray technology.

To affect gene expression, regulatory proteins bind to DNA not just at a single site on the genome, but at many different sites. The human genome contains three billion DNA base pairs of sequence, so determining all the DNA binding sites for a protein is a daunting task. ChIP-chip makes it possible to examine protein-DNA interactions on a genome-wide scale. However, because of the complexity of the protocol and the costs of obtaining the wide range of reagents, the method has, until now, been limited to only a small number of expertly trained, well-funded laboratories.

To accommodate different scientific approaches, two types of kits are available. The Magna ChIP2 Promoter Microarray kits contain the necessary reagents for ChIP-chip and either human or mouse Agilent promoter microarrays.

The Magna ChIP2 Universal Microarray kits contain the necessary reagents for performing ChIP-chip with microarrays provided by the user. The kits are the result of an ongoing collaboration between Millipore and Agilent Technologies.