Historical Concept and Development of Dna Microarrays

DNA microarrays were first described in 1995 for simultaneous analysis of a large-scale gene expression patterns. Since then, they have moved to center stage in many areas of biological research and now assuming an increasingly important role in diagnostics, genomics, pharmacology, cancer and other biomedical research, among others. In this article, we discuss the scientific background and principle of microarrays; describe their types, several technical steps needed for obtaining microarray data, and their current applications. The potential applications of DNA microarrays in detection and identification of plant pathogens, especially viruses, viroids and phytoplasmas are presented.