A DNA microarray is a collection of microscopic DNA spots attached to a solid surface. Scientists use DNA microarrays to measure the expression levels of large numbers of genes simultaneously or to genotype multiple regions of a genome. Each DNA spot contains pico

Pico

Pico- is a prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of 10−12 or .Derived from the Italian piccolo, meaning small, this was one of the original 12 prefixes defined in 1960 when the International System of Units was established....

mole

Mole (unit)

The mole is a unit of measurement used in chemistry to express amounts of a chemical substance, defined as an amount of a substance that contains as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 12 grams of pure carbon-12 , the isotope of carbon with atomic weight 12. This corresponds to a value...

s (10⁻¹² moles) of a specific DNA sequence, known as probe

Hybridization probe

In molecular biology, a hybridization probe is a fragment of DNA or RNA of variable length , which is used in DNA or RNA samples to detect the presence of nucleotide sequences that are complementary to the sequence in the probe...

s (or reporters). These can be a short section of a gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

 or other DNA element that are used to hybridize a cDNA or cRNA sample (called target) under high-stringency conditions.