Microarrays in pharmacogenomics--advances and future promise

With their ability to provide global views of genome sequence and gene activity, microarrays have emerged as key analytical tools in the field of pharmacogenomics. Vast amounts of data must be collected and analyzed to meet pharmacogenomics' ambitious goals, ranging from identifying markers that predict individuals' responses to therapy to discovering new drug targets. Microarrays will be instrumental to these efforts because they provide bountiful sources of gene expression and genotypic data. Attesting to their productivity, microarrays have been the central technology used in thousands of peer-reviewed publications and have also become important contributors to many databases including PharmGKB, the Cancer Microarray Database and the database of single nucleotide polymorphisms (dbSNP). Microarrays are also making more focused contributions, however, in helping pursue hypothesis-driven inquiries that extend or complement broad genomic surveys. In addition, their potential as clinical tools is being increasingly recognized. This review identifies some of the varied and changing needs of pharmacogenomics research and discusses the ways in which microarrays are tending to these demands. The technique's strongpoints and limitations are examined, as well as its future potential.