Microarray imaging data pre-processing

The study of cellular gene expression profiles is becoming more and more important within molecular biology, biochemistry and medicine. Recently a new methodology, based on microarrays, has been developed for investigating the cell behavior in comparison to the expression of a high number of genes. In the microarray technology the grid positioning, the correct spot value and the background subtraction are very important for the preliminary pre-processing of expression images. A program, called SpotView, has been developed in order to evaluate these aspects. Regular grids of interest areas are placed on the image, following a semi-automatic procedure of position adjustment, and the signal for each spot is retrieved. An extensible simulator has been also developed to producing synthetic image examples on which to accomplish studies.