ArrayTrack: a free FDA bioinformatics tool to support emerging biomedical research--an update.

ABSTRACT

ArrayTrack is a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bioinformatics tool that has been widely adopted by the research community for genomics studies. It provides an integrated environment for microarray data management, analysis and interpretation. Most of its functionality for statistical, pathway and gene ontology analysis can also be applied independently to data generated by other molecular technologies. ArrayTrack has been undergoing active development and enhancement since its inception in 2001. This review summarises its key functionalities, with emphasis on the most recent extensions in support of the evolving needs of FDA's research programmes. ArrayTrack has added capability to manage, analyse and interpret proteomics and metabolomics data after quantification of peptides and metabolites abundance, respectively. Annotation information about single nucleotide polymorphisms and quantitative trait loci has been integrated to support genetics-related studies. Other extensions have been added to manage and analyse genomics data related to bacterial food-borne pathogens.