General Information

  The Oligonucleotides (oligoNT [70-mers]) were synthesized by Operon Technologies against 12,227 NR fiber ESTs, excluding consensus sequences <= 100 nucleotides in length, or showing >= 85% similarity to other genes. The Cotton fiber microarrays were fabricated by spotting oligo NTs (40 uM ) in 1X Array-It Spotting Buffer plus in duplicate on Telechem superaldehyde slides in 23 x 23 subarrays using the Omni Grid arrayer (Genomic Solutions) equipped with 16 (4x4) MicroQuill pins (Majer Precision Engineering). Experimental controls (71) include internal, positive and negative controls, transgene and vector controls, calibration spike-in controls, ratio spike-in controls, blank and buffer controls interspersed among the cotton oligoNTs and replicated >=2 times. Additional controls include cotton sequences deposited in GenBank, but not found in our fiber dbEST. Post-printing processing of slides to chemically cross-link oligomers was performed according to slide manufacturer's instructions.