Microarrays as a tool to investigate the biology of aging: a retrospective and a look to the future.

The use of microarrays as a tool to investigate fundamental biological questions has become ubiquitous over the past several years. Microarrays are becoming as common as the polymerase chain reaction or any of the other tools in the molecular biologist's armory. Unlike experiments involving other tools, however, the design and analysis of microarray experiments present some unique problems to molecular biologists, problems with which statisticians have long been familiar. In this overview of microarrays and aging-related research, we will review selected highlights of microarray studies that have been carried out to study aging to date, as well as discuss some of the potential problems that routinely arise during these types of experiments, especially in the context of aging.