Agilent Technologies Introduces Whole Mouse Genome Microarray.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) today introduced a whole genome microarray for mouse, the most widely used mammalian model in life science research. The Agilent whole mouse genome oligonucelotide microarray provides the most comprehensive, up-to-date and high-quality coverage of the mouse genome available. The microarray will benefit scientists conducting genome-wide gene-expression profiling research in such fields as oncology, cardiovascular biology, immunology and toxicology/toxicogenomics.

The Agilent whole mouse genome microarray includes more than 41,000 unique features, representing all known mouse genes and related transcripts. It is Agilent's third whole genome microarray introduced this year, following those for human and Arabidopsis thaliana, a model plant organism. Whole genome microarrays significantly reduce the cost, effort and sample requirements of performing gene-expression experiments.

"The broad coverage available in Agilent's new microarray will be very useful for our cancer and inflammatory disease research," said Calvin Lin, director of gene expression at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. "We have been using Agilent's 22K feature mouse microarrays and were able to adopt this whole genome format without a loss in sensitivity or performance and without interruption to our workflow."

Agilent's microarray incorporates the most current mouse genome data by combining the content from recent releases of public mouse genome databases (including RefSeq, Ensembl, UCSC Golden Path, RIKEN, NIA, MGI, GenBank and UniGene) as well as sequence information submitted by Agilent microarray users.

With its innovative SurePrint inkjet-based microarray manufacturing process, Agilent can quickly revise and redesign its microarrays to provide the most current view of the genome. Each Agilent microarray features 60-mer oligonucleotide probes for increased detection of low-expressing genes and includes open feature space for customers to add their own proprietary sequence content using Agilent's custom microarray services.

"In recent years, there has been enormous growth in the availability of mouse genomic information," said Mel Kronick, chief scientist of Agilent's Integrated Biology Solutions business. "This microarray does not just combine the content of our existing mouse microarrays, but takes advantage of recent findings to provide the most up-to-date and complete whole genome screening platform available."

To maximize the quality of the microarray content, Agilent used the latest release of the mouse genome assembly (NCBI Build 32) to verify the microarray's probe sequence orientation, quality and clustering assembly classification. This step ensures that the target sequences used to design the probes are accurate and have minimal redundancies. Final gene probes are selected using Agilent's rigorous methodology, which includes computational and experimental wet-lab validation.

Based on the industry-standard 1" x 3" glass-slide format, Agilent's whole genome microarrays can be read on most commercial microarray scanners. Agilent's open platform allows scientists to easily and affordably migrate from their in-lab "home brew" microarrays to high-quality commercial microarrays using their existing laboratory setup.

About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) is a global technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company's 28,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenue of $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2003. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com.

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