Chung Christine H, Bernard Philip S, Perou Charles M
Division of Hematology/Oncology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB #7305, 3009 Old Clinic Building, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA.
Nat Genet. 2002 Dec;32 Suppl:533-40. doi: 10.1038/ng1038.
The twenty-first century heralds a new era for the biological sciences and medicine. The tools of our time are allowing us to analyze complex genomes more comprehensively than ever before. A principal technology contributing to this explosion of information is the DNA microarray, which enables us to study genome-wide expression patterns in complex biological systems. Although the potential of microarrays is yet to be fully realized, these tools have shown great promise in deciphering complex diseases such as cancer. The early results are painting a detailed portrait of cancer that illustrates the individuality of each tumor and allows familial relationships to be recognized through the identification of cell types sharing common expression patterns.
21世纪迎来了生物科学和医学的新纪元。我们这个时代的工具使我们能够比以往任何时候都更全面地分析复杂的基因组。促成这一信息爆炸的一项主要技术是DNA微阵列,它使我们能够研究复杂生物系统中的全基因组表达模式。尽管微阵列的潜力尚未完全实现,但这些工具在解读诸如癌症等复杂疾病方面已显示出巨大的前景。早期结果正在描绘一幅详细的癌症图谱,该图谱说明了每个肿瘤的个体性,并通过识别具有共同表达模式的细胞类型来识别家族关系。