Patent ID: 7476519

Claim:
A method for screening a compound library to identify a compound with a physiological effect on a biological sample, the method comprising: (a) contacting a plurality of biological samples with a plurality of members of a compound library; (b) obtaining an expressed RNA sample from each of the plurality of biological samples; (c) producing a plurality of nucleic acid samples from the plurality of expressed RNA samples, said nucleic acid samples selected from: (i) total cellular RNA or a subset thereof isolated from said biological samples; (ii) mRNA isolated from said biological samples; (iii) cDNA produced from (i) or (ii); and (iv) nucleic acids amplified from (i), (ii) or (iii); and wherein each nucleic acid sample comprises a plurality of different nucleic acid species; (d) arraying said plurality of nucleic acid samples to produce a nucleic acid array, wherein each sample is deposited at a single unique location on the array; (e) hybridizing a plurality of defined sequence probes to said nucleic acid array, which probes each comprise a different polynucleotide sequence, and which probes are each capable of generating a different detectable signal; (f) quantitating a signal corresponding to hybridization of each of the plurality of defined sequence probes to the nucleic acid array, thereby generating a quantitated hybridization signal; and, (g) detecting at least one quantitated hybridization signal that differs from a control hybridization signal, thereby identifying a compound that exerts a physiological effect on a biological sample; and, (h) entering the quantitated hybridization signal into a database.