Patent ID: 7881873

Claim:
A method for determining the abundance of a genomic DNA sequence in an experimental sample relative to a control sample, comprising: (a) furnishing a control array and an experimental array, wherein the control and experimental arrays have a common set of primers for detecting genomic DNA sequences of interest; (b) performing a DNA detection process for the control sample using the control array to generate a control dataset; (c) performing a DNA detection process for the experimental sample using the experimental array to generate an experimental dataset; d) filtering each of the control and experimental datasets to identify a set of data DNA sequences, wherein the set of data DNA sequences consists of DNA sequences in either the control or experimental datasets with a value determined from the DNA detection process that is below a predetermined value; (e) filtering each of the control and experimental datasets to identify a set of qualifier DNA sequences, wherein the set of qualifier DNA sequences consists of DNA sequences which are present in both the control dataset and the experimental dataset with a value determined from the DNA detection process that is below a predetermined value; (f) normalizing each of the control and experimental datasets, comprising: (i) comparing the value of each data DNA sequence in the control dataset with the value of each qualifier DNA sequence in the control dataset to identify a control relative abundance value for each data DNA sequence-qualifier DNA sequence pair of the control dataset; (ii) comparing the value of each data DNA sequence in the experimental dataset with the value of each qualifier DNA sequence in the experimental dataset to identify an experimental relative abundance value for each data DNA sequence-qualifier DNA sequence pair of the experimental dataset; (g) comparing the control relative abundance value of a data DNA sequence-qualifier DNA sequence pair with the experimental relative abundance value of the corresponding data DNA sequence-qualifier DNA sequence pair, wherein a change in the relative abundance value indicates that the abundance of the data DNA sequence may be different in the experimental sample as compared that of the control sample; and (h) ranking the set of data DNA sequences based on the comparisons of relative abundance values in step (g).