MATHEMATISCHE ANALYSE FÜR DIE BEURTEILUNG VON ÄNDERUNGEN AUF GENEXPRESSIONSEBENE

• Main Authors: FUCHS, RAINER, BUSHNELL, STEVEN, THEILHABER, JOACHIM
• Format: Patent
• Language: German
• Published: 15.10.2009
• Subjects: BEER; BIOCHEMISTRY; CALCULATING; CHEMISTRY; COMPOSITIONS OR TEST PAPERS THEREFOR; COMPUTING; CONDITION-RESPONSIVE CONTROL IN MICROBIOLOGICAL ORENZYMOLOGICAL PROCESSES; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; ENZYMOLOGY; MEASURING OR TESTING PROCESSES INVOLVING ENZYMES, NUCLEICACIDS OR MICROORGANISMS; METALLURGY; MICROBIOLOGY; MUTATION OR GENETIC ENGINEERING; PHYSICS; PROCESSES OF PREPARING SUCH COMPOSITIONS; SPIRITS; VINEGAR; WINE

The present invention relates to a highly accurate and reproducible mathematically-based methodology for quantifying the levels of differential gene expression from microassay protocols. Specifically, the present invention provides a simple deductive approach, grounded in a Bayesian framework, to circumvent the heuristic-based limitation of previous methodologies. Rather than seeking a point-estimate of the fold-change of the level of gene expression, the present invention utilizes the derivation of mathematical formula to determine the a posteriori distribution of all the fold-changes of differential gene expression which may be inferred from the given measurements. From this a posteriori distribution the following information may be obtained: (i) an estimator for the fold-change of the level of gene expression; (ii) confidence limits for the fold-change, at any given confidence level; and (iii) a P-value for assessing the statistical significance of change. The present invention also possesses the advantage that fold-change estimates and confidence limits may even be assigned to signal pairs where both signals are zero or negative, without resorting to heuristic thresholds.