Dial molecular biology: An introduction

Abstract

Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying how genes in the heart are expressed and how their expression may be modulated in response to external stimuli is now recognised as being an essential part of understanding how the heart develops, functions, and responds to pathological events. Such knowledge will lead to improved or new strategies for treating heart disease. Whereas the last decade has seen considerable advances in examining individual gene expression patterns, the new technologies now offer the ability to analyse global patterns of expression of many hundreds of genes. This will serve both as a methodology for identifying new genes involved in disease processes and in categorising global shifts in expression and hence general regulatory networks.