NEW YORK – TruDiagnostic announced on Monday that it has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with North Carolina State University for a custom methylation infinium microarray to study imprinted genes.
The microarray, which was codeveloped by the company and the university, can be used to examine imprint control regions of the human genome. Researchers from the university published a complete list of 1,488 hemi-methylated candidate imprint control regions earlier this year, and that list was used to create the microarray.
"The identification of the human imprintome will allow scientists to determine — simply by sampling DNA from the blood or other accessible tissues — the role imprinted genes epigenetically altered by environmental exposures play in the formation of all diseases and behavioral disorders," Randy Jirtle, a professor of epigenetics at NCSU and one of the researchers, said in a statement.
Under the licensing deal, TruDiagnostic can use and develop the microarray in further research to determine how the imprintome translates into disease risk, the company said in a statement. The Lexington, Kentucky-based epigenetic testing laboratory is working with researchers across the world to generate epigenetic health data using the tool, it said.