The needed replicates of arrays in microarray experiments for reliable statistical evaluation

Microarray technology provides exciting tools for monitoring expression levels of hundreds or thousands of genes simultaneously. Good microarray studies have clear objectives. To make meaningful statistical interpretation of study results obtained from microarray experiments, the design of the experiments must consider some degree of replication to allow for the description of sources of variations. In this article, we present an overview of replicate designs that incorporate measurement variability to address its study objectives.