DNA-screening of gene variants by micro-arrays.

In just over a few years, microarrays have made a significant contribution to nearly all fields of biological research. Nowadays, they offer a biotechnological revolution with the help of DNA chemistry, silicon chip technology and optics, equipping the research with an exceptionally powerful tool to detect changes in the trascriptome via hybridisation. Therefore, this technology helps to provide insights into candidate genes that could be important in understanding pathogenesis, influenced by environmental factors, and in evaluating the therapeutic effects to identify progression risk in the studied disease In this view an important application is the analysis of point mutations and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the human genome. In oncology SNP-array has focused on detecting the predisposition for cancer, predicting responses to chemotherapies, evaluating its associated toxicity to select the best combinations of anti-cancer drugs. With the relative ease of access to its cellular components, blood is particularly suited to be analysed by microarrays, which have generated a wealth of new information in the field of cancer and they continue to be applied with success in many haematological areas of research. The array-technology is being rapidly transferred from the expanding knowledge of molecular basis of neoplastic conditions into more challenging areas, such as pharmacogenomics and pharmacogenetics, which have emerged as a potential new testing platform for an individualized and tailored management of patients. Considering the key role of anti-folate drug toxicity and of dietary folate intake, the supposed realization of a micro-chip for the screening of folate pathway gene variants will be discussed in this chapter. After dealing with the huge potentiality of array-technology and its recent applications in cancer investigation, the creation of the micro-chip will be proposed as a diagnostic tool.