Statistical tools for gene expression analysis and systems biology and related web resources

Abstract

During the past decade advanced technologies in the field of genomics have revolutionized life sciences and medical research. Large-scale applications of these technologies are making possible the completion of the sequences of an ever growing number of genomes of a variety of organisms in animal, plant and prokaryote kingdoms. The next major task to achieve is the understanding of the function of genes and their interactions. In this chapter we will briefly introduce the major statistical techniques proposed for gene expression data analysis and for data integration, and then we will focus on the description of the most widely used and freely accessible web tools and software dedicated to genomic data analysis (Systems Biology).