Abstract
It is challenging to elucidate biological implications of genes due to the underlying complexity and robustness of biological systems. Despite of the completed genome sequencing and developing reverse genetic resources, yet we don't know the function of thousands of genes of Arabidopsis thaliana. To gain insights into functions of uncharacterized genes, we need to establish following technical advances:
1) Massive detection of changes caused by a gene disruption/mutation.
2) Inference of relationships among components at network levels.
We have studied disease resistance of Arabidopsis with above considerations. Global mRNA expression upon pathogen infection can be used quantitative markers at various points in the signaling network. They also provide higher resolution to detect similarity and dissimilarity among genotypes. We have analyzed T-DNA lines for uncharacterized genes up-regulated on gene-for-gene resistance using an economical and high-performance custom microarray (Sato, M. et al. 2007. Plant J.) and a feature detection algorithm.
