How much does a microarray experiment cost? - (Nov/01/2010 )

This is a pretty nooby question, but how much does a typical microarray experiment cost, supposing you wanted to assess differences in gene expression between two/three/four samples? Are there cheaper versions which assses fewer genes (e.g. genes known or suspected to be involved in muscle growth, maintenance, differentiation etc)?

I used to think it was about €12000 but maybe prices have come down since then or maybe I was just mistaken? I'm not planning a microarray but it would be useful to know how accessible the technology is.

No replies? Is that because it's a stupid question? Or there are too many factors to go into?

There are a lot of variables that can effect the cost of the a microarray service (technology and / or method used, genome size, how many replicate runs you want, etc, etc, etc...), but just to give a very rough and general range I would say from $2000 to $30000 (in the US, that is). I'm not sure if the cost in the E.U. would be as simple as a dollar to euro conversion, but I would assume it wouldn't be too far off since access should be somewhat global seeing as how you can fedex your samples just about anywhere.

Thanks, BioBM!

If you want to assess fewer genes (i.e. pathway oriented) I will rather check current qPCR machines performing 1536 reactions in <0.5 uL each.

96well on Thu Nov 4 18:05:15 2010 said: