DNA microarray technology for target identification and validation.

Jayapal, Manikandan; Melendez, Alirio J

1. Microarrays, a recent development, provide a revolutionary platform to analyse thousands of genes at once. They have enormous potential in the study of biological processes in health and disease and, perhaps, microarrays have become crucial tools in diagnostic applications and drug discovery. 2. Microarray based studies have provided the essential impetus for biomedical experiments, such as identification of disease-causing genes in malignancies and regulatory genes in the cell cycle mechanism. Microarrays can identify genes for new and unique potential drug targets, predict drug responsiveness for individual patients and, finally, initiate gene therapy and prevention strategies. 3. The present article reviews the principles and technological concerns, as well as the steps involved in obtaining and analysing of data. Furthermore, applications of microarray based experiments in drug target identifications and validation strategies are discussed. 4. To exemplify how this tool can be useful, in the present review we provide an overview of some of the past and potential future aspects of microarray technology and present a broad overview of this rapidly growing field.