Transcriptomes, transcription activators and microarrays

Gene-specific transcription activators are among the main factors which spe cifically shape the transcriptome profiles. It is tempting to take advantag e of their properties to decipher the genome expression circuitry, The adve nt of microarray technology has offered fantastic opportunities to quickly analyze the expression profiles dictated by specific transcription factors, This review will first focus on the strategies which have been devised to control the activity of transcription factors and in the second part on the microarray experiments which addressed the role of these transcription fac tors in the genome-wide expression profile. This last part will mainly cons ider the case of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome. All the collect ed data are available through the on-line database yTAFNET (http:// transcr iptome.ens.fr/ytafnet/), yTAFNET is designed to help the characterization o f connections between the different yeast regulatory networks. (C) 2001 Fed eration of European Biochemical Societies, Published by Elsevier Science B. V, All rights reserved.