The project, begun in November 2004, aims at developing complete profiles of cellular expression for every gene in organism's the genome. The process involves Biolog using its Phenotype Microarray technology to study the E. coli K-12 strain library developed by researchers at Keio and the Nara Institute, both based in Japan.
This collection contains strains for which each gene in the genome has been knocked-out. Last year, Biolog began generating 2,000 phenotypic responses for each gene knock-out in the genome. The company said it expects to expand this analysis in 2006 to include the entire E. coli genome.