title: Quality assessment of microarray experiments.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We describe a quality assurance procedure to maximize the value of oligonucleotide microarray expression profiles.
  
  
  METHODS
  Background microarray noise was 82.2+/-54.5 and 51.8+/-12.4 units, respectively, before and after enacting the program (P<0.0001). We also noted improved concordance of microarray expression fold-changes for selected genes with results of RT-PCR validation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This multi-step procedure, including quantification of RNA sample degradation and detection of outlier data points, has increased data quality from our microarray facility.
authors.affiliation: London Regional Genomics Centre, Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5K8.
authors.forename: David E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Carter
authors.forename: John F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.forename: Emma M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Allister
authors.forename: Murray W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Huff
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Hegele
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis / Q000592:standards*; D011786:Quality Control; D012313:RNA / Q000592:standards; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D012313:RNA