X Species technology

Authentigene use patented XSpecies technology to provide a range of food testing and authentication services. This method utilises the power of high-density oligonucleotide array (microarry) technology for gene expression profiling.

A widely-used oligonucleotide microarray is based on GeneChip® technology (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, USA). GeneChip® microarrays use probe sets, comprising between 11 and 20 probe pairs, to quantify the abundance of each transcript. GeneChip® microarrays provide reproducible, accurate data at high throughput rates, and are the preferred option to provide the type of data for use within microarray databases where data standardisation is crucial.

The wide-scale adoption of GeneChip® technology is exemplified within the plant sciences research community, where data from a large numbers of studies using Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh is publicly-available. At present GeneChip® microarrays are available for only a few species of eukaryotes. Thus, in contrast to A. thaliana, the study of the transcriptome for most agriculturally, or ecologically, important plant species has been inhibited since extensive sequence information and the fabrication of custom microarrays has been required.

XSpecies usage:

• Deletions, chromosome rearrangements or insertions, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and RNA changes other than simple gene transcripts
• Transcriptome analyses