Affymetrix and Iconix Biosciences this week announced the launch of the ToxFX Analysis Suite, a toxicogenomics tool that the firms claim will improve researchers' understanding of safety issues associated with new drug candidates, compounds, or environmental toxicants.
According to Affy and Iconix, ToxFX combines Iconix' automated analysis with Affymetrix' GeneChip arrays to generate safety profiles that can diagnose or predict more than 50 toxicological outcomes. It also examines the gene expression changes in 22 biological pathways, offering understanding of the underlying mechanisms of toxicity.
Researchers can perform the analysis by generating gene expression data from rat samples on either the GeneChip Rat ToxFX 1.0 Array or the Rat Genome 230 2.0 Array. The data are then compared to the Iconix Drug Signatures and pathway response libraries and cross-referenced to identify matches to known toxicological responses. A toxicity profile report is then generated for the compound based on this information.
The tool is available from Affymetrix.
Affymetrix also recently launched its GeneChip Cotton Genome Array, a single chip comprised of 23,977 probe sets representing 21,854 cotton transcripts.
According to Affy, the Cotton Genome Array is based on EST sequences obtained from four species of Cotton: Gossypium hirsutum, G. raimondii, G. arboretum, and G. barbadense.
The company has also released its GeneChip Chromosome 21/22 2.0R Array, a second-generation chip for studying human chromosomes 21 and 22.
The single chip contains over 2.3 million probe pairs to interrogate chromosomes 21 and 22 for transcript mapping or chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments.