Biological networks to the analysis of microarray data

Microarray technology, which permits rapid and large-scale screening for patterns of gene expressions, usually generates a large amount of data. How to mine the biological meanings under these data is one of the main challenges in bioinformatics. Compared to the pure mathematical techniques, those methods incorporated with some prior biological knowledge generally bring better interpretations. Recently, a new analysis, in which the knowledge of biological networks such as metabolic network and protein interaction network is introduced, is widely applied to microarray data analysis. The microarray data analysis based on biological networks contains two main research aspects: identification of active components in biological networks and assessment of gene sets significance. In this paper, we briefly review the progress of these two categories of analyses, especially some representative methods.