Object microarray gene expression

In this paper we describe the basic design of a microarray gene expression database to help microarray users and their informatics teams set up their information services. The first version of the microarray database object model ArrayExpress, which is described here, was developed at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in collaboration with the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) and posted on the Internet in November, 1999 (see (http //www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress)). A relational database implementation maxd based on the ArrayExpress object model was conducted at the University of Manchester (http //bioinf.man.ac.uk/microarray/resources.html) and is widely used for microarray laboratory informatics support. 

A typical gene expression profiling experiment takes place in five separate processes. They are (i) microarray fabrication, (ii) purification and labeling of the target material, (iii) hybridization, (iv) detection and (v) data analysis. The characteristics of each step were briefly discussed in the introduction. A closer look at each of these steps is the object of this section. Here we mainly refer to biochips where the probe is constituted by nucleic acids (DNA microarrays). 

Keywords Microarrays, Bioinformatics, Databases, Gene expression. Object modeling, UML... 

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