How is NimbleGen array synthesis different from spotted array technology?
Spotted array technologies are based on the physical deposition of biomolecules (typically oligonucleotides or cDNAs) within the array. The deficiencies of spotted array technologies include significantly lower feature density, the complexity of synthesizing, purifying and cataloging and tracking all biomolecules used for spotted array manufacturing, and the difficulty of making iterative design changes. Any errors in the dispensing of biomolecules into source plates will carry through to the final manufactured array. Additional errors can be caused by incorrect annotation or labeling of source tubes or plates, plates used out of sequence during the spotting process, etc. By contrast, NimbleGen microarrays are synthesized directly on the slide surface using only the source sequence information and the synthesis chemistry. This approach eliminates all of the laborious and potentially error prone steps required for the preparation of spotted arrays. In addition, the small feature size po
