Gene Chip Analysis - Data Analysis

Data Analysis

Data analysis is critical, since any error introduced in the data analysis part will result in biologically insignificant results. In data analysis, the information from the raw data file is further processed to yield meaningful biological results. This part includes data normalization, flagging of the data, averaging the ratio for replicates, clustering of similarly expressed genes, etc. Data has to undergo normalization before further analysis. Normalization removes the non-biological variation between the samples. After the normalization, the ratio is calculated for each gene in the replicate. Based on the ratio, differentially regulated genes are determined. There are various statistical analyses which are also done for confidence analysis. Each replicate data is also examined for various experimental artifacts, bias by computing parameters related to intensity, background, flags, spot details, etc.