ArrayExpress: A Public Repository for Microarray Data

Publisher Summary ArrayExpress is a public repository for microarray data developed and maintained at the European Bioinformatics Institute. ArrayExpress contains data from over 3400 hybridizations from ten different organisms, including human and all major model organisms. Minimum information about a microarray experiment (MIAME) specifies the minimum information that has to be provided about a microarray experiment to enable its unambiguous interpretation and potential reproducibility. ArrayExpress is organized into three sections: arrays, protocols, and experiments. Each experiment, array, and protocol in ArrayExpress is given a unique accession number. ArrayExpress provides a password-protected log-in service for private submissions. This option can be used for anonymous reviewing of microarray experiment-based publications or for submitters to access their data before release. Whenever possible MIAMExpress uses drop-down lists of controlled vocabularies, helping the user to select the appropriate term for the required field, and free text boxes are provided to add new terms. MIAMExpress is a generic tool, which is suitable for any species or domain, and is suitable for single and dual channel experiments and gene expression and CGH data submissions. MIAMExpress has been developed further for the toxicogenomics community and an Arabidopsis version is under development.