Basicconcepts
Geneexpressiondatacontainsinformationaboutgeneactivity,whichcanreflectthecurrentphysiologicalstateofcells,suchaswhethercellsareinanormalordeterioratingstate,whetherdrugsareeffectiveontumorcells,etc..Theanalysisofgeneexpressiondatacanobtaingenefunctionandgeneexpressionregulationinformation.ThisisoneofthemajorchallengesofbioinformaticsandoneofthekeyreasonswhyDNAmicroarrayscanbewidelyusedinthefieldofbiomedicine.
Featuresandresearchdirections
Features
Theobjectofgeneexpressiondataanalysisisadatamatrixcomposedofallorpartofthegeneexpressiondataunderdifferentconditions.Throughtheanalysisofthisdatamatrix,somebiologicalquestionscanbeanswered.Theanswerstothesequestions,combinedwithotherbiologicalknowledgeanddata,willhelpclarifygeneexpressionregulationpathwaysandregulatorynetworks.Revealinggeneregulationpathwaysandnetworksisthecommongoalofbiologyandbioinformatics,andisthecorecontentofsystemsbiologyresearch.
Researchdirection
1.Analyzetheexpressionlevelofasinglegene
Accordingtothechangeofgeneexpressionlevelunderdifferentexperimentalconditions,Tojudgeitsfunction,forexample,thespecificgenesrelatedtotumortypingcanbedeterminedbasedonthesignificanceoftheexpressiondifference.Theanalysismethodsusedincludehypothesistestinginstatisticsandsoon.
2.Considergenecombinations
Groupgenestostudytheircommonfunctions,interactions,andcoordinatedregulation.Methodssuchasclusteranalysisareoftenused.
3.Trytoinferthepotentialgeneregulatorynetwork
Interprettheobservedgeneexpressiondatafromthemechanism.Reverseengineeringmethodsareoftenused.