Software for quantitation and visualization of expression array data

Software is described that facilitates the analysis of phosphoimages from l arge array hybridizations. The Macintosh((R)) PowerPC(TM)-compatible applic ation and its manual are available at no charge from http://people.bu.edu/s trehlow. The software is compatible with both custom formats and array filt ers from three commercial manufacturers. It allows the rapid quantitation o f every spot on images of hybridizations to large arrays. The user drags gr ids of squares over the spots on the image to define the coordinates of eac h spot, then aligns and edits the position of the grid. The software then c orrects the positions as necessary and quantitates up to 27 000 spots per i mage. It stores the numerical values for each signal in a format called the fingerprint file. Fingerprint files can be directly averaged or compared a llowing the user to find mean values or differences in data from independen t hybridization experiments. Data can be recalled from the fingerprint file and can be output in a variety of spreadsheet formats with several options for background correction. Finally, the software offers an output format t hat allows the convenient visualization of data points using animated three -dimensional graphs.