Toxicogenomics microarray assessment

Toxicogenomics tries to assess the toxicity and safety of chemical compounds by analyzing gene expression changes detected by measuring mRNA levels using DNA microarrays (1,2). 

Knudsen S (2004). Guide to Analysis of DNA Microarray Data. 2nd ed. Wiley-Liss, Hoboken, N.J. Pennie W, Pettit SD, Lord PG. Toxicogenomics in risk assessment an overview of an HESl collaborative research program. Environ Health Perspect 2004 112 417 19. 

However, because of constraint of resources, sometimes toxicogenomics is not necessary if the sole purpose is to run a study in preclinical safety assessment it is more likely to piggyback on other toxicology conducts. At other times, a microarray study happens to run because of leftover of interested frozen tissues, a mere afterthought rather than a planned experiment. Such practice might confound the data interpretation and limit the future reference value of the study. As discussed earlier, the incremental value of toxicogenomics lies in the ever-expanding reference data of quality. 

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