Joining high-throughput technology with in silico modelling advances genome-wide screening towards targeted discovery

Genome research has entered the functional evaluation phase now and high-throughput (HT) methods provide an enormous amount of raw data for that purpose. However, functional verification still requires experimental regimens not suitable for application in a HT style, requiring an efficient discovery and selection process pinpointing biological mechanisms and processes for subsequent targeted verification. Regulatory networks and underlying molecular mechanisms can now be deduced through the interpretation of HT-data in the context of biologic knowledge. Computational models of promoter structures are suitable for genome-wide searches and a number of recent examples demonstrate their usefulness in prediction and selection of functional targets for experimental verification.