Figure 1

Strategies for selecting candidate genes from expression studies for functional analysis. This schematic depicts various approaches to selecting candidate genes for functional characterization. First, the temporal and spatial expression patterns of genes can be determined by integrating information from experimental and available datasets. Second, genes can be prioritized on the basis of predicted or known protein function. Finally, a subset of candidate genes can be functionally analyzed using genetic analysis, which can be labor intensive, or high-throughput methods such as RNA interference.