The NMD-Chip Consortium selected Roche NimbleGen microarrays for use in its activities related to neuromuscular disorders (NMDs). The group is working to develop a faster, more cost-effective diagnostic tool.
Currently, it takes between two weeks to a year, according to the consortium, and the aim is to bring the time down to 72 hours to one week. The NMD-Chip Consortium comprises 13 European entities from eight countries.
The consortium will use custom-designed NimbleGen Human CGH 12x135 K microarrays to locate gene- and exon-level rearrangements, deletions, or insertions associated with Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophies, limb girdle muscular dystrophies, congenital muscular dystrophies, and hereditary motor-sensory neuropathies like Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathies. These high-throughput CGH will allow 12 research samples to be processed at the same time on a single array.
In addition, the consortium will use customized NimbleGen Human Sequence Capture 385 K arrays to capture DNA fragments of all known genes implied in a given group of NMDs. This technology when coupled with high-throughput sequencing will provide quick evaluation of the gene variation underlying the NMDs being researched.