Gene set analysis is a new concept and method. to analyze and interpret microarray gene expression data and tries to extract biological meaning from gene expression data at gene set level rather than at gene level. Compared with methods which select a few tens or hundreds of genes before gene ontology and pathway analysis, gene set analysis identifies important gene ontology terms and pathways more consistently and performs well even in gene expression data sets with minimal or moderate gene expression changes. Moreover, gene set analysis is useful for comparing multiple gene expression data sets dealing with similar biological questions. This review briefly summarizes the rationale behind the gene set analysis and introduces several algorithms and tools now available for gene set analysis.