Extensive increase of microarray signals in cancers calls for novel normalization assumptions

Dong Wang, Lixin Cheng, Mingyue Wang, Ruihong Wu, Pengfei Li, Bin Li, Yuannv Zhang, Yunyan Gu, Wenyuan Zhao, Chenguang Wang, Zheng Guo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Scopus citations

Abstract

When using microarray data for studying a complex disease such as cancer, it is a common practice to normalize data to force all arrays to have the same distribution of probe intensities regardless of the biological groups of samples. The assumption underlying such normalization is that in a disease the majority of genes are not differentially expressed genes (DE genes) and the numbers of up- and down-regulated genes are roughly equal. However, accumulated evidences suggest gene expressions could be widely altered in cancer, so we need to evaluate the sensitivities of biological discoveries to violation of the normalization assumption. Here, we analyzed 7 large Affymetrix datasets of pair-matched normal and cancer samples for cancers collected in the NCBI GEO database. We showed that in 6 of these 7 datasets, the medians of perfect match (PM) probe intensities increased in cancer state and the increases were significant in three datasets, suggesting the assumption that all arrays have the same median probe intensities regardless of the biological groups of samples might be misleading. Then, we evaluated the effects of three currently most widely used normalization algorithms (RMA, MAS5.0 and dChip) on the selection of DE genes by comparing them with LVS which relies less on the above-mentioned assumption. The results showed using RMA, MAS5.0 and dChip may produce lots of false results of down-regulated DE genes while missing many up-regulated DE genes. At least for cancer study, normalizing all arrays to have the same distribution of probe intensities regardless of the biological groups of samples might be misleading. Thus, most current normalizations based on unreliable assumptions may distort biological differences between normal and cancer samples. The LVS algorithm might perform relatively well due to that it relies less on the above-mentioned assumption. Also, our results indicate that genes may be widely up-regulated in most human cancer.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)126-130
Number of pages5
JournalComputational Biology and Chemistry
Volume35
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Cancer
  • Deregulation direction
  • Differential expression
  • Normalization

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Structural Biology
  • Biochemistry
  • Organic Chemistry
  • Computational Mathematics

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