Introduction to the Statistical Analysis of Two-Color Microarray Data
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Microarray experiments have become routine in the past few years in many fields of biology. Analysis of array hybridizations is often performed with the help of commercial software programs, which produce gene lists, graphs, and sometimes provide values for the statistical significance of the results. Exactly what is computed by many of the available programs is often not easy to reconstruct or may even be impossible to know for the end user. It is therefore not surprising that many biology students and some researchers using microarray data do not fully understand the nature of the underlying statistics used to arrive at the results.
We have developed a module that we have used successfully in undergraduate biology and statistics education that allows students to get a better understanding of both the basic biological and statistical theory needed to comprehend primary microarray data. The module is intended for the undergraduate level but may be useful to anyone who is new to the field of microarray biology. Additional course material that was developed for classroom use can be found at http://www.polyploidy.org/ .
In our undergraduate classrooms we encourage students to manipulate microarray data using Microsoft Excel to reinforce some of the concepts they learn. We have included instructions for some of these manipulations throughout this chapter (see the “Do this…” boxes). However, it should be noted that while Excel can effectively analyze our small sample data set, more specialized software would typically be used to analyze full microarray data sets. Nevertheless, we believe that manipulating a small data set with Excel can provide insights into the workings of more advanced analysis software.
