Microarray drying - (Dec/01/2006 )

First, let me explain my background:

I have homemade microarrays that contain two arrays on each slide. Consistently, the upper array of the two on the slide has less background caused by drying of samples and wash solutions to the slide. To wash the slides, I wash in a 600 ml beaker containing my wash solutions and a stir bar. The upper array which has less background is always submerged deeper into the beaker than the upper array, but both are fully submerged in the wash solution. The slides sit in a holding device (sold by ArrayIt) that I transfer from one wash solution to the next in less than 2 seconds. When I transfer the slides to a slide centrifuge to be spun dry, I try to "flip" the slide from a vertical position (that in the beaker) to a horizontal position (that in the spinner) so that the final wash solution will lay on top of the slide so that the slide does not dry prior to spinning. It takes me about 5 seconds to pull the slide out, transfer to the centrifuge, and begin spinning. Even with all this, I haven't figured out how to prevent the lower array from drying.

Does anyone have any suggestions as for areas where I can improve my protocol so to reduce drying of my bottom array?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

hi zpratt
What I sometimes use are slide washing racks (normally used for FISH) or wash containers that you can submerge under water for washing of my double printed slides (two arrays on one slide)
finally drying with N2 gas instead of centrifuge inproved the results alot

hope this helps
ari