Entering edit mode
Dear all!
Apologies for asking a question which is not directly Bioconductor
related: After some experience with spotted 2-channel arrays and
Affydata, I am currently analysing my first data set based on Agilent
arrays. I know that packages like marray or limma have facilities to
read these data and that they can be normalised and analysed like any
other 2-colour-arrays. On the other hand the printing technology of
these arrays (using inkjet-printing of 60mer oligos) is closer in
spirit
to Affy, if I understand this correctly. This seems to show in the
data
as well. For example the strongest correlations I found in the single
channel (log-)intensities was not between the two channels observed on
the same slide (like with spotted arrays), but between the two
channels
(differently dyed on different arrays in a loop design) that contained
the same sample (which is quite reassuring). This made me wonder
whether
(once dye and array effects have been removed by some normalisation
method) with Agilent arrays one might really use single channel
intensities as measures of gene expression instead of reducing them to
the log-ratio only as is usually done for two-channel data.
This would have consequences on the way these arrays should be
normalised (rather by a multichip method than individually) and also
allow more flexibility in the design of experiments.
As I said before this is my first Agilent data set, so I would be
interested to hear opinions of others with more experience. Before I
start to re-invent the wheel here, I?d be also interested to know
whether any of you is aware of tools, software, papers, etc? dealing
with the analysis of Agilent array data specifically (rather than just
applying standard methods for 2-coloured cDNA -arrays).
Any help/comments appreciated
Claus
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Claus-D. Mayer | http://www.bioss.ac.uk
Biomathematics & Statistics Scotland | email: claus at bioss.ac.uk
Rowett Research Institute | Telephone: +44 (0) 1224 716652
Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK. | Fax: +44 (0) 1224 715349