19. GENENETWORK-

♤ Networks of interacting genes are responsible for generating life's diversity. Gene networks play a central role in our sophisticated immune response, the ability to digest food, and even for causing cancer

- the disaster that occurs when gene networks become un-regulated. Thus understanding the properties of gene networks is of fundamental importance in the post-genomic era.

♤ GeneNetwork consists of two major components:

 Massive collections of genetic, genomic, and phenotype data for large families

 Sophisticated statistical analysis and gene mapping software that enable analysis of regulatory networks and genotype-to-phenotype relations

♤ GeneNetwork is primarily used by researchers but has also been adopted successfully for undergraduate courses in genetics, bioinformatics, physiology, and psychology. Researchers and students typically retrieve sets of genotypes and phenotypes from one or more families and use built-in statistical and mapping functions to explore relations among variables and to assemble networks of associations. Key steps include the analysis of these factors:

1. The range of variation of traits

2. Covariation among traits (scatterplots and correlations)

3. Architecture of larger networks of traits

4. Quantitative trait locus mapping and causal models of the linkage between sequence differences and phenotype differences