Abstract
BackgroundTwo or more factor mixed factorial experiments are becoming increasingly common in microarray data analysis. In this case study, the two factors are presence (Patients with Alzheimer's disease) or absence (Control) of the disease, and brain regions including olfactory bulb (OB) or cerebellum (CER). In the design considered in this manuscript, OB and CER are repeated measurements from the same subject and, hence, are correlated. It is critical to identify sources of variability in the analysis of oligonucleotide array experiments with repeated measures and correlations among data points have to be considered. In addition, multiple testing problems are more complicated in experiments with multi-level treatments or treatment combinations.ResultsIn this study we adopted a linear mixed model to analyze oligonucleotide array experiments with repeated measures. We first construct a generalized F test to select differentially expressed genes. The Benjamini and Hochberg (BH) procedure of controlling false discovery rate (FDR) at 5% was applied to the P values of the generalized F test. For those genes with significant generalized F test, we then categorize them based on whether the interaction terms were significant or not at the α-level (αnew = 0.0033) determined by the FDR procedure. Since simple effects may be examined for the genes with significant interaction effect, we adopt the protected Fisher's least significant difference test (LSD) procedure at the level of αnew to control the family-wise error rate (FWER) for each gene examined.ConclusionsA linear mixed model is appropriate for analysis of oligonucleotide array experiments with repeated measures. We constructed a generalized F test to select differentially expressed genes, and then applied a specific sequence of tests to identify factorial effects. This sequence of tests applied was designed to control for gene based FWER.
Highlights
Two or more factor mixed factorial experiments are becoming increasingly common in microarray data analysis
We demonstrate our method on the analysis of microarray data from two regions of the brain, the olfactory bulb (OB) and the cerebellum (CER), from control subjects and patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD)
Analysis of gene expression in OB and CER of controls and AD patients Based on the statistical methods described, 708 genes were considered to be significant by the procedure of controlling false discovery rate (FDR) at 5% for multiple testing across
Summary
Two or more factor mixed factorial experiments are becoming increasingly common in microarray data analysis. It is critical to identify sources of variability in the analysis of oligonucleotide array experiments with repeated measures and correlations among data points have to be considered. Experiments in which subjects are assigned randomly to levels of a treatment factor (or treatment combinations of more than one factor) and are measured for trends at several sampling times, spaces or regions (within-subject factors) are increasingly common in clinical and medical research. Sources of variability must be identified, and the correlation structure among within-subject measurements needs to be taken into account; and secondly, multiple testing is an immediate concern if tests of interaction, main effects, and/or simple effects are performed for each gene
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