La Revue de médecine interne
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Review Comparative Study
[What place for DNA microarray in inflammatory diseases?].
DNA chip is a recently developed technique allowing analysis of thousands of genes at the same time in multiple biological samples. In few years it has become an obligatory step in massive gene expression study. The enormous quantity of results generated and the new way of thinking allowed make this kind of study a true revolution. ⋯ The optimal use of DNA microarrays will necessitate a powerful statistical analysis and an high quality biological experimentation. Strict standard and quality criteria are developing. Obviously, the DNA chips have a role to play in multifactorial inflammatory diseases mainly through their potential to bring new answers to diagnostic and pathophysiological problems. One potential development of the technique in such diseases will be the definition of disease specific gene profiles and the generation of chips allowing the detection of few targeted genes with all the known mutations of these genes. The correlation of global or targeted gene expression with clinical and pathological data will allow a new step forward in the understanding and taking care of inflammatory diseases.