Our group has used an “ask the plant” approach to understand how attack from natural insect herbivores regulates gene expression in their native host plant, Nicotiana attenuata. Since there is no genome project available for this native plant, we have conduced a series of display experiments (DDRT-PCR; cDNA-AFLP, subtractive libraries) on tissues attacked by chewing and flush/lacerate herbivores, and the differentially regulated genes have been used to create cDNA and oligonucleotide microarrays. This short talk will summarize the major take-home messages of our group’s experiences after hybridising more than 200 of these arrays and introduce terms (imprint, eraseability) and procedures (PCA) that are helpful in describing the responses. In addition, the talk will present a comparison of our boutique arrays with the TIGR 10,000 unigene cDNA potato array that were hybridized with similar samples. This analysis will provide a quantitative comparison of the “ask the plant” approach with a non-selective approach in analysing the herbivore-induced transcriptome. This necessarily telegraphic presentation will be supported by a detailed poster presentation by Dr C. Voelckel.