The Expression Online (ExpressO) tool is designed and developed for investigating the actual set of genes covered within specific microarray platforms, and also for comparing different gene sets to identify common as well as set-specific genes. Coupled with a variety of biological filters and capabilities for comparing sets of genes across different platform and species, experimentalists can use ExpressO to derive hypothesis-driven biological themes from microarray data sets.

ExpressO can be used in different ways. The following illustrates some applications possible with ExpressO.

1) Whole Array Benchmarking and Biological Filters
ExpressO can be used to benchmark and compare full gene sets of different gene expression / microarray platforms. Biological filters can also be applied to ascertain the competency of the particular expression platform for testing specific biological hypotheses.

2) Cross Platform Analysis
ExpressO can be used to compare expression data obtained from different platforms (such as Illumina Sentrix Expression BeadChips vs Affymetrix MicroArray Chips). Common genes as well as platform-specific genes can be easily identified using ExpressO.

3) Cross Species Analysis
To facilitate comparison of data sets containing genes from different organisms, Expresso utilises the HomoloGene resource for cross-species comparisons to group homologous genes together. This is useful for investigating common phenomena from different organisms (for instance, to identify a core set of growth factors common to human stem cells and mouse stem cells).

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