Asuragen Informatics Services

Asuragen offers the support you need from consultation to extensive data analysis using the most up-to-date methods. Utilize our expertise in combination with our Gene Expression Profiling Service, miRNA Profiling Service, Genotyping Service or from your own microarray experiments.

Asuragen prides itself on accuracy of analysis, but goes further to ensure you can rapidly extract meaningful results and determine a course of action. Our proprietary miRInform™ data packaging system is a prime example of a highly interactive and user-friendly environment for interpreting results.

Asuragen participated in the pivotal MAQC-I FDA initiative to standardize gene expression profiling data analysis, as well as the MAQC-II initiative to set standards for biomarker discovery and validation.

Services Available

  • Value-oriented, preconfigured data analysis pipelines
  • Custom data analyses
  • For gene expression profiling services
  • For genotyping services
    As part of our Agilent aCGH service, you will receive:
    • Raw Data Files
    • Extracted Quantitative Data Files from Agilent’s Feature Extraction software
    • Analysis Report Tables
    • Normalization only
    • DNA Analytics Reports
  • Consultation and analysis with statisticians, computational biologists, or bioinformaticians

  • Access to industry-leading software tools for pathway analysis and biomarker discovery

  • Customized data processing pipelines for repetitive analyses

  • Custom primer and probe designs for qPCR and qRT-PCR assays

  • Access to informatics staff for on-going support

Standard Service Premium - SSP

In addition to Standard data packaging of raw data, Asuragen offers a pipelined analysis and packaging service for support of one-way statistical comparisons from the Affymetrix or Illumina gene expression platforms. For statistical analysis and graphical representation of your entire experiment, our SSP data analysis package offers additional analysis and these deliverables:

  • Data normalization
  • Hypothesis testing by one-way ANOVA of the summarized array data, providing p-value and fold-change information relevant to your experimental groups

  • Publication-quality figures and images, including:
    • Hierarchical clustering
    • Pair-wise volcano plot(s)
    • Box Plot(s)
    • Principal components analysis (PCA) plot(s)

These are provided in electronic form on the data delivery DVD in addition to the standard deliverables provided with every gene expression profiling project. With all SSP projects we will call you upon shipment of your data to arrange a one-hour web-based informatics review of your data.

Custom Designed Experimental and Analysis Plans

All good studies begin with a sound experimental design. Consultation with Asuragen’s bioinformatics team can provide you with a custom experimental design prior to doing the biological study and/or an analysis plan based on your experimental questions. This analysis plan will comprise the best statistical methodologies to address your biological question. Replication is crucial to microarray studies as it is with any biological experiment because there is inherent noise in the data, even after systematic sources of variation are removed. It is difficult to yield meaningful and accurate statistical analysis results without replication. For most basic studies we recommend at least three biological replicates. More complex designs may require more replicates. Contact us to discuss the statistical implications of your experimental design.

Staff Qualification

When a new team member joins the informatics team, they are provided hands-on training with Asuragen-provided test materials. After their training period, data from a qualification set of samples is evaluated on each operator before they are considered “qualified” and allowed to analyze client data sets.

Additional Services Available

Sample prep:

Cell lines – eukaryotic and prokaryotic
Blood/biofluids
Frozen/RNAlater/RNAretain tissues
Fixed (FFPE) tissues

mRNA Analysis:

miRNA Analysis:

DNA Analysis:

Requirements for Informatics Services

Sample Input Requirements for the services listed above are found in the Sample Submission Form and Shipping Instructions.