macroarray? microarray? - (Aug/17/2007 )

we routinely screen many 48-well plates with cells; is this macroarray or microarry? what makes the difference?

the way i see it is that a microarray fits on a standard microscope slide (with thousands of probes) and a macroarray is bigger (and may have fewer probes).

Macroarrays, the immediate predecessors to microarrays, were used for the expression analysis of tens or hundreds of genes.

Macroarrays are usually printed on nylon membranes approximately 8 x 12 cm in size containing up to 5000 spots, each greater than 300 microns in diameter.

Microarrays, on the other hand, usually have 10,000 - 40,000 spots that are less than 200 microns in diameter in a 1.5 sq cm area.