Options available - from start to finish - for obtaining expression data by microarray

The excitement surrounding microarray technology has been tempered by the limited ability of the general biomedical research community to gain access to it. Given that the hardware required for exploitation of the technology is becoming increasingly available, it is an appropriate moment to review options, be they commercially or publically available. Here, we provide a snapshot of the rapidly changing field of microarray-based RNA expression analysis and consider the components and procedures for putting together a complete system.