Evaluation of Amplified-based Target Preparation Strategies for Toxicogenomics Study : cDNA versus cRNA

DNA microarray analysis of gene expression in toxicogenomics typically requires relatively large amounts of total RNA. This limits the use of DNA microarray when the sample available is small. To confront this limitation, different methods of linear RNA amplification that generate antisense RNA (aRNA) have been optimized for microarray use. The target preparation strategy using amplified RNA in DNA microarray protocol can be divided into direct-incorporation labeling which resulted in cDNA targets (Cy-dye labeled cDNA from aRNA) and indirect-labeling which resulted in cRNA targets (i.e. Cy-dye labeled aRNA), respectively. However, despite the common use of amplified targets (cDNA or cRNA) from aRNAs, no systemic assessment for the use of amplified targets and bias in terms of hybridization performance has been reported. In this investigation, we have compared the hybridization performance of cRNA targets with cDNA targets from aRNA on a 10 K cDNA microarrays. Under optimized hybridization conditions, we found that 43% of outliers from cDNA technique and 86% from the outlier genes were reproducibly detected by both targets hybridization onto cDNA microarray. This suggests that the cRNA labeling method may have a reduced capacity for detecting the differential gene expression when compared to the cDNA target preparation. However, further validation of this discordant result should be pursued to determine which techniques possesses better accuracy in identifying truly differential genes.