What is an Exon probe search?

An Exon probe search returns Agilent Exon probes from the eArray probe database. These probes, which are a special subset of the probes that are available in eArray for the Expression application type, interrogate specific human, mouse, and rat exons.

From the returned probes, you can create an Exon probe group, which you can then include in an Exon microarray design. Exon microarrays are an extension of Agilent's Gene Expression platform. Microarrays with Exon probes can be used to perform both gene-level and exon-level analyses in the same experiment.

Standard gene expression probes are designed primarily to the 3' ends of transcript sequences. In contrast, Agilent Exon probes are designed to sequences from throughout transcripts, which enables the design of probes for all of the exons in a given transcript, rather than for just those near the 3' end. Because of this difference, Exon probes cannot be included in standard expression probe groups. Also, for Exon probes, you must use a different, whole-transcript sample labeling procedure that also includes random primers, rather than the standard oligo-dT based labeling method.

Note: Exon probe searches also return standard Expression probes that map to exons.

To do an Exon probe search, see Search for Exon probes.

For more information on Exon probes and Exon microarrays, see Exon microarrays.