SummaryA genome-wide transcription pro®ling of Arabidopsis upon genotoxic stress has been performed using a high-density colony array (HDCA). The array was based on a library of 27 000 cDNA clones derived from Arabidopsis cells challenged with bleomycin plus mitomycin C. The array covers more than 10 000 individual genes (corresponding to at least 40% of Arabidopsis genes). After hybridisation of the HDCA with labelled cDNA probes obtained from genotoxin-treated (bleomycin plus mitomycin C, 6 h) and untreated seedlings, 39 genes revealed an increased and 24 genes a decreased expression among the 3200 highly expressed clones (representing approximately 1200 individual genes because of redundancy of the cDNA library). Of the 4900 clones with a low transcriptional level, the expression of 500 clones was found to be altered and 57 genes with increased and 22 genes with decreased expression were identi®ed by sequence analysis of 135 identi®ed clones. The HDCA results were validated by real-time PCR analysis. For about 80% of genes (34 out of 42), alteration in expression was con®rmed, indicating the reliability of the HDCA for transcription pro®ling. DNA damage and stress-responsive genes encoding, for instance transcription factors (myb protein and WRKY1), the ribonucleotide reductase small subunit (RNR2), thymidine kinase (TK), an AAA-type ATPase, the small subunit of a DNA polymerase and a calmodulin-like protein were found to be strongly upregulated. Also, several genes involved in cell cycle regulation revealed signi®cant alteration in transcription, as detected by real-time PCR analysis, suggesting disturbance of cell cycle progression by mutagen treatment.