5 replies to this topic

[seanspotatobusiness]

This is a pretty nooby question, but how much does a typical microarray experiment cost, supposing you wanted to assess differences in gene expression between two/three/four samples? Are there cheaper versions which assses fewer genes (e.g. genes known or suspected to be involved in muscle growth, maintenance, differentiation etc)?

I used to think it was about €12000 but maybe prices have come down since then or maybe I was just mistaken? I'm not planning a microarray but it would be useful to know how accessible the technology is.

[seanspotatobusiness]

No replies? Is that because it's a stupid question? Or there are too many factors to go into?

[BioBM]

There are a lot of variables that can effect the cost of the a microarray service (technology and / or method used, genome size, how many replicate runs you want, etc, etc, etc...), but just to give a very rough and general range I would say from $2000 to $30000 (in the US, that is).  I'm not sure if the cost in the E.U. would be as simple as a dollar to euro conversion, but I would assume it wouldn't be too far off since access should be somewhat global seeing as how you can fedex your samples just about anywhere.

[seanspotatobusiness]

Thanks, BioBM!

[96well]

If you want to assess fewer genes (i.e. pathway oriented) I will rather check current qPCR machines performing 1536 reactions in <0.5 uL each.

[seanspotatobusiness]

96well, on 04 November 2010 - 10:05 AM, said:

If you want to assess fewer genes (i.e. pathway oriented) I will rather check current qPCR machines performing 1536 reactions in <0.5 uL each.

Yeah, I think so too :/

1536-well plates? That's a lot of pipeting!