Tools for Analyzing Microarray Expression Data

Microarray technologies have emerged as key tools for genomic expression analysis for the purposes of studying disease states, identifying drug targets, and profiling time-, tissue- or stage-dependent changes. The resulting volume of data generated necessitates the use of bioinformatics tools to find interesting gene expression patterns, to identify statistically significant changes across experiments, and to provide additional tools relevant to data mining. We have developed a comprehensive workbench solution, GeneSpring™, which (1) comes with an intuitive interface incorporating organized file management, (2) handles data from multiple array formats, (3) includes multiple data display formats, (4) includes a suite of statistical clustering tools, and (5) incorporates automated annotation and cross-referencing. We will discuss the set of algorithms collectively designed to facilitate gene function identification from large scale genomic expression experiments.