A role for arrays in clinical virology: fact or fiction?

Microarrays of DNA probes have at least three roles in clinical virology. These are: firstly, in diagnosis, to recognise the causative agent of an illness; secondly, for molecular typing for (i) patient management, (ii) epidemiological reasons (e.g. investigating routes of transmission), (iii) purposes related to vaccine use; and thirdly, in research, to investigate the interactions between the virus and the host cell. Microarrays intended for syndromic diagnostic purposes require genome specific probes to capture the unknown target viral sequences and thereby reveal the presence of that virus in a test sample. Microarrays intended for typing and patient management, e.g. monitoring antiviral drug resistant mutations require a set of probes representing the important sequence variants of one or more viral genes. Microarrays intended for research into virus–host interactions require probes representative of each individual gene or mRNA of either the virus or the host genome. Diagnostic microarrays are dependent for their utility and versatility on generic, multiplex or random polymerase chain reactions that will amplify any of several (unknown) viral target sequences from a patient sample. In this review, the existing and potential applications of microarrays in virology, and the problems that need to be overcome for future success, are discussed.