The case for well-conducted experiments to validate statistical protocols for 2D gels: different pre-processing = different lists of significant proteins

• Main Authors: Deshane Jessy, Meleth Sreelatha, Kim Helen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2005-02-01
• Series: BMC Biotechnology
• Online Access: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6750/5/7

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The proteomics literature has seen a proliferation of publications that seek to apply the rapidly improving technology of 2D gels to study various biological systems. However, there is a dearth of systematic studies that have investigated appropriate statistical approaches to analyse the data from these experiments.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Comparison of the effects of statistical pre-processing on the results of two sample t-tests suggests that the results of 2D gel experiments and by extension the conclusions derived from these experiments are not independent of the statistical protocol used.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study suggests that there is a need for well-conducted validation studies to establish optimal statistical techniques to be used on such data sets.</p>