Determination of the minimum number of microarray experiments for discovery of gene expression patterns

Background: One type of DNA microarray experiment is discovery of gene expression patterns for a cell line undergoing a biological process over a series of time points. Two important issues with such an experiment are the number of time points, and the interval between them. In the absence of biological knowledge regarding appropriate values, it is natural to question whether the behaviour of progressively generated data may by itself determine a threshold beyond which further microarray experiments do not contribute to pattern discovery. Additionally, such a threshold implies a minimum number of microarray experiments, which is important given the cost of these experiments. Results: We have developed a method for determining the minimum number of microarray experiments (i.e. time points) for temporal gene expression, assuming that the span between time points is given and the hierarchical clustering technique is used for gene expression pattern discovery. The key idea is a similarity...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Fang-Xiang Wu, W. J. Zhang, Anthony J. Kusalik
• Keywords: BMCBI 2006, Gene Expression, Minimum Number, Time Points