Gene expression reliability estimation through cluster-based analysis

Gene expression is the fundamental control of the structure and functions of the cellular versatility and adaptability of any organisms. The measurement of gene expressions is performed on images generated by optical inspection of microarray devices which allow the simultaneous analysis of thousands of genes. The images produced by these devices are used to calculate the expression levels of mRNA in order to draw diagnostic information related to human disease. The quality measures are mandatory in genes classification and in the decision-making diagnostic. However, microarrays are characterized by imperfections due to sample contaminations, scratches, precipitation or imperfect gridding and spot detection. The automatic and efficient quality measurement of microarray is needed in order to discriminate faulty gene expression levels. In this paper we present a new method for estimate the quality degree and the data's reliability of a microarray analysis. The efficiency of the proposed approach in terms of genes expression classification has been demonstrated through a clustering supervised analysis performed on a set of three different histological samples related to the Lymphoma's cancer diseas

A novel neural network approach to cDNA microarray image segmentation

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier.Microarray technology has become a great source of information for biologists to understand the workings of DNA which is one of the most complex codes in nature. Microarray images typically contain several thousands of small spots, each of which represents a different gene in the experiment. One of the key steps in extracting information from a microarray image is the segmentation whose aim is to identify which pixels within an image represent which gene. This task is greatly complicated by noise within the image and a wide degree of variation in the values of the pixels belonging to a typical spot. In the past there have been many methods proposed for the segmentation of microarray image. In this paper, a new method utilizing a series of artificial neural networks, which are based on multi-layer perceptron (MLP) and Kohonen networks, is proposed. The proposed method is applied to a set of real-world cDNA images. Quantitative comparisons between the proposed method and commercial software GenePix(®) are carried out in terms of the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). This method is shown to not only deliver results comparable and even superior to existing techniques but also have a faster run time.This work was funded in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61174136 and 61104041, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China under Grant BK2011598, the International Science and Technology Cooperation Project of China under Grant No. 2011DFA12910, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the U.K. under Grant GR/S27658/01, the Royal Society of the U.K., and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

Guest editorial foreword to the special issue on intelligent computation for bioinformatics

Copyright [2008] IEEE. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of Brunel University's products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it

A multi-view approach to cDNA micro-array analysis

The official published version can be obtained from the link below.Microarray has emerged as a powerful technology that enables biologists to study thousands of genes simultaneously, therefore, to obtain a better understanding of the gene interaction and regulation mechanisms. This paper is concerned with improving the processes involved in the analysis of microarray image data. The main focus is to clarify an image's feature space in an unsupervised manner. In this paper, the Image Transformation Engine (ITE), combined with different filters, is investigated. The proposed methods are applied to a set of real-world cDNA images. The MatCNN toolbox is used during the segmentation process. Quantitative comparisons between different filters are carried out. It is shown that the CLD filter is the best one to be applied with the ITE.This work was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK under Grant GR/S27658/01, the National Science Foundation of China under Innovative Grant 70621001, Chinese Academy of Sciences under Innovative Group Overseas Partnership Grant, the BHP Billiton Cooperation of Australia Grant, the International Science and Technology Cooperation Project of China under Grant 2009DFA32050 and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

A New Gridding Technique for High Density Microarray Images Using Intensity Projection Profile of Best Sub Image

As the technologies for the fabrication of high quality microarray advances rapidly, quantification of microarray data becomes a major task. Gridding is the first step in the analysis of microarray images for locating the subarrays and individual spots within each subarray. For accurate gridding of high-density microarray images, in the presence of contamination and background noise, precise calculation of parameters is essential. This paper presents an accurate fully automatic gridding method for locating suarrays and individual spots using the intensity projection profile of the most suitable subimage. The method is capable of processing the image without any user intervention and does not demand any input parameters as many other commercial and academic packages. According to results obtained, the accuracy of our algorithm is between 95-100% for microarray images with coefficient of variation less than two.  Experimental results show that the method is capable of gridding microarray images with irregular spots, varying surface intensity distribution and with more than 50% contamination. Keywords: microarray, gridding, image processing, gridding accurac

Microarray sub-grid detection: A novel algorithm

This is the post print version of the article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below - Copyright 2007 Taylor & Francis LtdA novel algorithm for detecting microarray subgrids is proposed. The only input to the algorithm is the raw microarray image, which can be of any resolution, and the subgrid detection is performed with no prior assumptions. The algorithm consists of a series of methods of spot shape detection, spot filtering, spot spacing estimation, and subgrid shape detection. It is shown to be able to divide images of varying quality into subgrid regions with no manual interaction. The algorithm is robust against high levels of noise and high percentages of poorly expressed or missing spots. In addition, it is proved to be effective in locating regular groupings of primitives in a set of non-microarray images, suggesting potential application in the general area of image processing

Automatic gridding of DNA microarray images.

Microarray (DNA chip) technology is having a significant impact on genomic studies. Many fields, including drug discovery and toxicological research, will certainly benefit from the use of DNA microarray technology. Microarray analysis is replacing traditional biological assays based on gels, filters and purification columns with small glass chips containing tens of thousands of DNA and protein sequences in agricultural and medical sciences. Microarray functions like biological microprocessors, enabling the rapid and quantitative analysis of gene expression patterns, patient genotypes, drug mechanisms and disease onset and progression on a genomic scale. Image analysis and statistical analysis are two important aspects of microarray technology. Gridding is necessary to accurately identify the location of each of the spots while extracting spot intensities from the microarray images and automating this procedure permits high-throughput analysis. Due to the deficiencies of the equipment that is used to print the arrays, rotations, misalignments, high contaminations with noise and artifacts, solving the grid segmentation problem in an automatic system is not trivial. The existing techniques to solve the automatic grid segmentation problem cover only limited aspect of this challenging problem and requires the user to specify or make assumptions about the spotsize, rows and columns in the grid and boundary conditions. An automatic gridding and spot quantification technique is proposed, which takes a matrix of pixels or a microarray image as input and makes no assumptions about the spotsize, rows and columns in the grid and is found to effective on datasets from GEO, Stanford genomic laboratories and on images obtained from private repositories. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2004 .V53. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 43-03, page: 0891. Adviser: Luis Rueda. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2004

Crossword: A Fully Automated Algorithm for the Segmentation and Quality Control of Protein Microarray Images

Biological assays formatted as microarrays have become a critical tool for the generation of the comprehensive data sets required for systems-level understanding of biological processes. Manual annotation of data extracted from images of microarrays, however, remains a significant bottleneck, particularly for protein microarrays due to the sensitivity of this technology to weak artifact signal. In order to automate the extraction and curation of data from protein microarrays, we describe an algorithm called Crossword that logically combines information from multiple approaches to fully automate microarray segmentation. Automated artifact removal is also accomplished by segregating structured pixels from the background noise using iterative clustering and pixel connectivity. Correlation of the location of structured pixels across image channels is used to identify and remove artifact pixels from the image prior to data extraction. This component improves the accuracy of data sets while reducing the requirement for time-consuming visual inspection of the data. Crossword enables a fully automated protocol that is robust to significant spatial and intensity aberrations. Overall, the average amount of user intervention is reduced by an order of magnitude and the data quality is increased through artifact removal and reduced user variability. The increase in throughput should aid the further implementation of microarray technologies in clinical studies.Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation (Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award

Bioinformatics framework for genotyping microarray data analysis

Functional genomics is a flourishing science enabled by recent technological breakthroughs in high-throughput instrumentation and microarray data analysis. Genotyping microarrays establish the genotypes of DNA sequences containing single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and can help biologists probe the functions of different genes and/or construct complex gene interaction networks. The enormous amount of data from these experiments makes it infeasible to perform manual processing to obtain accurate and reliable results in daily routines. Advanced algorithms as well as an integrated software toolkit are needed to help perform reliable and fast data analysis. The author developed a MatlabTM based software package, called TIMDA (a Toolkit for Integrated Genotyping Microarray Data Analysis), for fully automatic, accurate and reliable genotyping microarray data analysis. The author also developed new algorithms for image processing and genotype-calling. The modular design of TIMDA allows satisfactory extensibility and maintainability. TIMDA is open source (URL: http://timda.SF.net and can be easily customized by users to meet their particular needs. The quality and reproducibility of results in image processing and genotype-calling and the ease of customization indicate that TIMDA is a useful package for genomics research