Gene Expression Omnibus: NCBI gene expression and hybridization array data repository

• Published in: Nucleic acids research 2002-01, Vol.30 (1), p.207-210
• Main Authors: Edgar, Ron, Domrachev, Michael, Lash, Alex E
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Communication; Database Management Systems; Databases, Genetic; Forecasting; Gene Expression Profiling; Genome; Humans; Information Storage and Retrieval; Internet; National Library of Medicine (U.S.); Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; United States
• ISSN: 1362-4962; 0305-1048; 1362-4962
• DOI: 10.1093/nar/30.1.207

The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) project was initiated in response to the growing demand for a public repository for high-throughput gene expression data. GEO provides a flexible and open design that facilitates submission, storage and retrieval of heterogeneous data sets from high-throughput gene expression and genomic hybridization experiments. GEO is not intended to replace in house gene expression databases that benefit from coherent data sets, and which are constructed to facilitate a particular analytic method, but rather complement these by acting as a tertiary, central data distribution hub. The three central data entities of GEO are platforms, samples and series, and were designed with gene expression and genomic hybridization experiments in mind. A platform is, essentially, a list of probes that define what set of molecules may be detected. A sample describes the set of molecules that are being probed and references a single platform used to generate its molecular abundance data. A series organizes samples into the meaningful data sets which make up an experiment. The GEO repository is publicly accessible through the World Wide Web at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo.