Identibac - New Micro-array 'Chips'
Micro-array DNA technology offers a method for biologists to understand the complexities of a living organism by providing a tool to analyse the whole genome, as long as the genome sequence for that organism is known. Pathogenic bacteria cause disease and death in both humans and animals when they acquire genetic material that helps them to create infection. This infection is often difficult to treat particularly if the pathogenic bacteria build-up a resistance to antibiotics.
At VLA, we have developed two new miniaturised micro-array 'chips' based on the innovative gene platform provided by Clondiag Chip Technologies. The two new chips have been designed to identify different virulence or disease causing genes in Escherichia coli (Ec) and genes that confer antibiotic resistance in Gram-negative bacteria. Research studies using the 'Ec chip' to identify virulence genes in E.coli clinical isolates from both humans and animals, enabled us to establish the type of pathogenic E.coli present in each sample. Using the antimicrobial resistance (Amr) chip, that covers all known families of gram negative bacteria, a panel of E.coli and Salmonella clinical isolates was tested to determine the presence of resistance genes. The majority of E.coli isolates (90%) and a large proportion of the Salmonella (56%) isolates were resistant to the ampicillin gene blaTEM.
These results demonstrate that the chips will not only provide a simple and rapid method to detect the presence of target genes in clinical isolates, when compared to a known genome sequence, but also increase our understanding of their distribution and linkage to disease.
These two new arrays can be used for either high throughput testing or initial screening procedures and were launched under the brand name IdentiBac™ at the Society for General Microbiology meeting held in Edinburgh in September 2007.
