Making sense of whole genome expression data. Microarray databases and tools for integrating whole-genome expression results into cellular networks.

Microarrays are generating a massive amount of data describing cell function; classifying these data and integrating the information produced with previously accumulated biological information Therefore the main efforts to make sense of microarray data are directed to the construction of databases of microarray experiments, in order to integrate the information on the expression of a group of genes with the available biological information. The aim of this review is to analyse critically the most important issues in building databases of microarray experiments and to discuss the potentials of a pathway-based approach to the analysis of microarray data.