Statistical Methods in Microarray Gene Expression Data Analysis

Abstract

Microarrays allow the simultaneous measurement of the expression levels of thousands of genes. This unique data structure has inspired a completely new area of research in statistics and bioinformatics. The objective of the present chapter is to review some of the main statistical tools used in this context. We will mainly focus on low-level preprocessing steps: image analysis, data transformation, normalization, and multiple testing for differential expression. The high-level inference of genetic regulatory interactions from preprocessed microarray data will be covered in Chapters 8 and 9.