| 摘要 |
Biologically active compounds (e.g. from the groups of pharmaceutical drugs, cofactors, hormones, vitamins or phytochemicals) often consist of two or more stereoisomers (enantiomers or diastereoisomers) which may differ in their pharmacodynamic/kinetic, toxicological and biological properties. These differences are so far difficult to detect. A well known example for a biologically active compound and its counterpart is vitamin E which is predominantly administered as two different 'forms', one derived from natural sources (mainly soybeans), and one from production by chemical total-synthesis. While vitamin E from natural sources occurs as a single stereoisomer (RRR-alpha-tocopherol), so-called synthetic vitamin E (all-rac-alpha-tocopherol) is an equimolar mixture of eight stereoisomers. The present invention is directed to a method for calculating the biological activity of a biologically active compound (e.g. RRR-alpha-tocopherol) and a counterpart thereof (e.g. all-rac-alpha-tocopherol), comprising the steps of: culturing a plurality of cells in a culture medium and treating the cells with different concentrations of either said compound or said counterpart thereof; or treating a plurality of animals or plants with different concentrations of either said compound or said counterpart; preparing samples from the treated cells or animals or plants containing a pool of target nucleic acids comprising RNA transcripts; detecting the expression of genes in said cells by measuring the amount of transcripts of said genes to obtain a target expression pattern by hybridizing said pool of target nucleic acids to an array of nucleic acid probes immobilized on a surface, wherein said array comprising at least 10 different nucleic acids, some of which comprise control probes, and wherein each different nucleic acid is localized in a known location of said surface; quantifying the hybridization of said nucleic acids to said array by comparing binding of matched and control probes; calculating the biological activity of the compound and its counterpart therefrom.
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