Comparison study of microarray meta-analysis methods.
BACKGROUND
Meta-analysis methods exist for combining multiple microarray datasets. However, there are a wide range of issues associated with microarray meta-analysis and a limited ability to compare the performance of different meta-analysis methods.


RESULTS
We compare eight meta-analysis methods, five existing methods, two naive methods and a novel approach (mDEDS). Comparisons are performed using simulated data and two biological case studies with varying degrees of meta-analysis complexity. The performance of meta-analysis methods is assessed via ROC curves and prediction accuracy where applicable.


CONCLUSIONS
Existing meta-analysis methods vary in their ability to perform successful meta-analysis. This success is very dependent on the complexity of the data and type of analysis. Our proposed method, mDEDS, performs competitively as a meta-analysis tool even as complexity increases. Because of the varying abilities of compared meta-analysis methods, care should be taken when considering the meta-analysis method used for particular research.
Campain
Anna
A
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Center of Mathematical Biology, University of Sydney, F07 Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. anna.campain@sydney.edu.au
Yang
Yee Hwa
YH
D000465:Algorithms; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006801:Humans; D008223:Lymphoma / Q000235:genetics; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D012372:ROC Curve