Microarrays and toxicology: The advent of toxicogenomics

The availability of genome-scale DNA sequence information and reagents has radically altered life-science research. This revolution has led to the dev elopment of a new scientific subdiscipline derived from a combination of th e fields of toxicology and genomics. This subdiscipline, termed toxicogenom ics, is concerned with the identification of potential human and environ me ntal toxicants, a nd their putative mechanisms of action, through the use o f genomics resources. One such resource is DNA microarrays or "chips," whic h allow the monitoring of the expression levels of thousands of genes simul taneously. Here we propose a general method by which gene expression, as me asured by cDNA microarrays, can be used as a highly sensitive and informati ve marker for toxicity. Our purpose is to acquaint the reader with the deve lopment and current state of microarray technology and to present our view of the usefulness of microarrays to the field of toxicology. Mel. Carcinog. 24: 153-159, 1999. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.