DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.2069701.v4
title: Biomarker Benchmark - Gene expression data from Gene Expression Omnibus - GSE25507

description: "A causal role of mutations in genes encoding for multiple general transcription factors in neurodevelopmental disorders including autism suggested that alterations at the global level of gene expression regulation might also relate to disease risk in sporadic cases of autism. This premise can be tested by evaluating for global changes in the overall distribution of gene expression levels. For instance, in mice, we recently showed that variability in hippocampal-dependent behaviors was associated with variability in the pattern of the overall distribution of gene expression levels, as assessed by variance in the distribution of gene expression levels in the hippocampus. We hypothesized that a similar change in the variance in gene expression levels might be found in children with autism. Gene expression microarrays covering greater than 47,000 unique RNA transcripts were done on purified RNA from peripheral blood lymphocytes of children with autism (n=82) and controls (n=64). The variance in the distribution of gene expression levels from each microarray was compared between groups of children. Also tested was whether a risk factor for autism, increased paternal age, was associated with variance in the overall distribution of gene expression levels. A decrease in the variance in the distribution of gene expression levels in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) was associated with the diagnosis of autism and a risk factor for autism, increased paternal age. Traditional approaches to microarray analysis of gene expression suggested a possible mechanism for decreased variance in gene expression. Gene expression pathways involved in transcriptional regulation were down-regulated in the blood of children with autism and children of older fathers. Thus, results from global and gene specific approaches to studying microarray data were complimentary and supported the hypothesis that alterations at the global level of gene expression regulation are related to autism and increased paternal age. Regulation of transcription, thus, represents a possible point of convergence for multiple etiologies of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders."<br>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE25507<br>We have included gene-expression data, the outcome (class) being predicted, and any clinical covariates. When gene-expression data were processed in multiple batches, we have provided batch information. Each data set is organized into a file set, where each contains all pertinent files for an individual dataset. The gene expression files have been normalized using both the SCAN and UPC methods using the SCAN.UPC package in Bioconductor (https://www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/SCAN.UPC.html). We summarized the data at the gene level using the BrainArray resource (http://brainarray.mbni.med.umich.edu/Brainarray/Database/CustomCDF/20.0.0/ensg.asp). We used Ensembl identifiers. The class, clinical, and batch data were hand curated to ensure consistency ("tidy data" formatting). In addition, the data files have been formatted to be imported easily into the ML-Flex machine learning package (http://mlflex.sourceforge.net/).