Designer microarrays: from soup to nuts.

The recognition that multigene mechanisms control the pathways determining the aging process renders gene screening a necessary skill for biogerontologists. In the past few years, this task has become much more accessible, with the advent of DNA chip technology. Most commercially available microarrays are designed with prefixed templates of genes of general interest, allowing investigators little freedom of choice in attempting to focus gene screening on a particular thematic pathway of interest. This report describes our "designer microarray" approach as a next generation of DNA chips, allowing individual investigators to engage in gene screening with a user friendly, do-it-yourself approach, from designing the probe templates to data mining. The end result is the ability to use microarrays as a platform for versatile gene discovery.