Quantifying gene expression

Identifying those genes that are expressed and at what levels is an essential part of almost any biological inquiry at the cellular level. Techniques such as Northern blot have been in existence for decades to perform this task, but advances in molecular biology and bioinstrumentation have led to the development of a variety of new techniques with a range of sensitivities, throughputs and quantitative capabilities. This review focuses on the latter issue. For several commonly used gene expression techniques, the extent and range of quantitative applicability are reviewed, and approaches for maximizing the accuracy and precision of these measurements are discussed.