Microarray analysis in drug discovery: an uplifting view of depression.
Genomic profiling provides insights into drug evaluation for diseases without defined molecular mechanisms or cellular assays. Levy provides a brief background in the development of microarray analysis and discussion of the application of this technique to pharmacogenomics. Highlighted is the microarray analysis of primary human neurons treated with antidepressants, antipsychotics, or opioid receptor agonists, demonstrating that these classes of drugs can be properly categorized by using two different statistical analysis methods: classification tree and random forest. Not only is microarray analysis valuable for drug evaluation and leading candidate development, but the genes identified as markers for the various drug classifications point to new directions for research into the underlying pathways responsible for human diseases, such as depression and psychosis.
Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 4th Floor EBL, 2209 Garland Avenue, Nashville, TN 37232-8340, USA. shawn.levy@vanderbilt.edu
Shawn E
SE
Levy
D000818:Animals; D000928:Antidepressive Agents / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000493:pharmacokinetics* / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003863:Depression / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015195:Drug Design; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010597:Pharmacogenetics / Q000639:trends*
D000928:Antidepressive Agents