Background: Periodic processes, such as the circadian rhythm, are important factors modulating and coordinating transcription of genes governing key metabolic pathways. Theoretically, even small fluctuations in the orchestration of circadian gene expression patterns among different tissues may result in functional asynchrony at the organism level and may contribute to a wide range of pathologic disorders. Identification of circadian expression pattern in time series data is important, but equally challenging. Microarray technology allows estimation of relative expression of thousands of genes at each time point. However, this estimation often lacks precision and microarray experiments are prohibitively expensive, limiting the number of data points in a time series expression profile. The data produced in these experiments carries a high degree of stochastic variation, obscuring the periodic pattern and a limited number of replicates, typically covering not more than two complete perio...
Andrey A. Ptitsyn, Sanjin Zvonic, Jeffrey M. Gimbl