On reliable discovery of molecular signatures
2009

Reliable Discovery of Molecular Signatures

Sample size: 100 publication 10 minutes Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Nilsson Roland, Björkegren Johan, Tegnér Jesper

Primary Institution: Linköping University and Karolinska Institutet

Hypothesis

Can a statistical framework be developed to control false discovery rates in molecular signature discovery?

Conclusion

The developed statistical framework enables reliable discovery of molecular signatures from genome-wide data.

Supporting Evidence

  • The method was able to discover molecular signatures with 5% FDR in three cancer data sets.
  • High predictive accuracy can occur despite high false discovery rates.
  • Signatures can be unstable even when the false discovery rate is low.

Takeaway

This study shows how to find important gene markers for diseases while making sure we don't mistakenly think unimportant genes are important.

Methodology

The study used simulation studies and applied a novel hypothesis testing procedure to control false discovery rates.

Potential Biases

The reliance on existing data sets may introduce bias in the findings.

Limitations

The method may require very large sample sizes for reasonable performance.

Participant Demographics

The study analyzed publicly available cancer gene expression data sets.

Statistical Information

P-Value

p<0.05

Statistical Significance

p<0.05

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1186/1471-2105-10-38

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