Analysis of hybridization in DNA microarrays: Hybridization energy isotherms

The experimental data on hybridization in DNA microarrays can be presented in form of Hybridization Energy Isotherms (HEI)—relation between the level of saturation of microarray cells with target molecules and the free energy of formation of the target-probe duplex (ΔG). The study of HEI is important for optimization of the design of biological microarrays to expand its effective range of target concentrations. The effect of vertical shift of HEI with increase of concentration of the targets was found previously in experiment. We analyzed the behavior of HEI and introduced a model explaining the experimental data and the shift effect.