Quantitative gene set analysis generalized for repeated measures, confounder adjustment, and continuous covariates
Gene set analysis (GSA) of gene expression data can be highly powerful when the biological signal is weak compared to other sources of variability in the data. However, many gene set analysis approaches utilize permutation tests which are not appropriate for complex study designs. For example, the correlation of subjects is broken when comparing time points within a longitudinal study. Linear mixed models provide a method to analyze longitudinal studies as well as adjust for potential confounding factors and account for sources of variability that are not of primary interest. Currently, there are no known gene set analysis approaches that fully account for these study design and analysis aspects. In order to do so, we generalize the QuSAGE gene set analysis algorithm, denoted Q-Gen, and provide the necessary estimation adjustments to incorporate linear mixed model analyses.
gene set analysis repeated measures confounder adjustment linear mixed models qusage