Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
Whole Cells
12.1 DNA Microarrays: A Revolution in Cell Biology
The last decade of the twentieth century witnessed two revolutionary experimental
techniques to emerge in molecular and cell biology - the
single-molecule
mechanics techniques
discussed in Chap.
11
(Xie 2001; Ishii and Yanagida 2007;
Deniz et al. 2008) and the
DNA microarray technique
to be discussed in this
chapter.
The advent of the microarray technique in molecular biology in the mid-1990s
(Pease et al. 1994; Schena et al. 1995; Eisen et al. 1998; Holter et al. 2000; Watson
and Akil 1999; Alon et al. 1999; White et al. 1999) marks an important turning
point in the history of cell biology, perhaps comparable to the discovery in 1953 of
the DNA double helix in molecular biology. Although there remain many challeng-
ing problems, both methodological and theoretical (Weinstein 2008; Ji and Yoo
2005; Ji et al. 2009a), this novel technology has a great potential to make funda-
mental contributions to advancing our knowledge about the basic workings of the
living cell which will lead to practical applications in medicine, biotechnology, and
The advancement of the microarray technique, which was critically dependent
on the molecular biology of DNA, has initiated a paradigm shift away from
DNA toward a
system-based biology
by allowing biologists to study the cell as an
organized system of biopolymers
in contrast to the earlier studies centered on
individual biopolymers (DNA, RNA, and proteins). In other words, DNA not
only opened the era of
molecular biology
in the mid-twentieth century but also
ushered in its own eclipse as the
prima dona
of biology in the last decade of the
same century, by giving birth to the microarray technique that led to the emergence
of
the systems biology.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the genome-
wide expression data revealed by the DNA array technique can no longer be
rationally accounted for solely on the basis of the principles and knowledge
gained from molecular biology of individual biopolymers alone (Ji 2004a; Ji and
Yoo 2005; Bechtel 2010) and that new approaches and perspectives are needed
