Laboratoire de Physique Théorique
Toulouse - UMR 5152

DNA microarrays are widely used in applied genomics, drug discovery, desease diagnotic or prognostic, agricultural and food industries,... Its principle is based on the detection of DNA targets in solution from the hybridization to their complementary strands grafted onto a surface. The need for more quantitative results imposes a better understanding of the ’surface’ hybridization. Few recent theoretical works have considered the differences introduced by the surface compared to the solution phase hybridization. Dedicated physico-chemical experiments are then necessary to test the models. I will present some of the theoretical and experimental results we obtained in our laboratory concerning the charge screening effects and the detection of point mutations.