MICROARRAY MEETING 2002: NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN MUTATION DETECTION AND GENE EXPRESSION
Segrate, MI (Italy), April 12, 2002 

Minerva Biotecnologica 2002 December;14(3-4):253-7

Copyright © 2003 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Application of an universal DNA microarray to cyanobacterial diversity assessment

Castiglioni B. ¹, Rizzi E. ², Frosini A. ³, Mugnai M. A. ⁴, Ventura S. ⁴, Sivonen K. ⁵, Rajaniemi P. ⁵, Rantala A. ⁵, Wilmotte A. ⁶, Boutte C. ⁶, Consolandi C. ³, Bordoni R. ², Mezzelani A. ², Busti E. ³, Rossi Bernardi L. ³, Battaglia C. ³, De Bellis G. ²

¹ Institute of Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology; ² Institute of Biomedical Technology, National Council for Researches, Milan, Italy; ³ Department of Biomedical Sciences and Technology, University of Milan, Italy; ⁴ Institute for the Study of Echosystems, National Council for Researches, Florence, Italy; ⁵ University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; ⁶ University of Liege, Liege, Belgium

Our tech­no­log­i­cal ­goal was to ­test the new tech­nol­o­gy of DNA micro­ar­rays in the ­field of bio­di­ver­sity assess­ments. The effi­cien­cy of DNA micro­ar­rays was com­pared ­against the “clas­si­cal” meth­ods for meas­ur­ing and mon­i­tor­ing the bio­di­ver­sity. We use cya­no­bac­te­ria ­from fresh­wa­ter ­lakes as mod­el organ­isms belong­ing to a ­well ­defined phy­lum of ­much eco­log­i­cal rel­e­vance. The com­bi­na­tion of the infor­ma­tion ­about cya­no­bac­te­ri­al bio­di­ver­sity togeth­er ­with the ­data describ­ing the ­water qual­ity of the ­lakes may ­reveal use­ful infor­ma­tion to ­design man­age­ment ­actions to con­trol the unwant­ed ­mass devel­op­ments of cya­no­bac­te­ria. ­Such ­blooms pre­vent the use of ­water for drink­ing and for rec­re­a­tion and can be tox­ic to ani­mals and ­humans. The pos­sibil­ity to auto­mate the micro­ar­ray tech­nol­o­gy in ­water qual­ity mon­i­tor­ing ­will be an inter­est­ing alter­na­tive to ­time-con­sum­ing micro­scop­ic enu­mer­a­tions.