Motivation: Biclustering of transcriptomic data groups genes and samples simultaneously. It is emerging as a standard tool for extracting knowledge from gene expression measurements. We propose a novel generative approach for biclustering called 'FABIA: Factor Analysis for Bicluster Acquisition'. FABIA is based on a multiplicative model, which accounts for linear dependencies between gene expression and conditions, and also captures heavytailed distributions as observed in real-world transcriptomic data. The generative framework allows to utilize well-founded model selection methods and to apply Bayesian techniques. Results: On 100 simulated datasets with known true, artificially implanted biclusters, FABIA clearly outperformed all 11 competitors. On these datasets, FABIA was able to separate spurious biclusters from true biclusters by ranking biclusters according to their information content. FABIA was tested on three microarray datasets with known subclusters, where it was two times the best and once the second best method among the compared biclustering approaches. Availability: FABIA is available as an R package on Bioconductor
Factor analysis for bicluster acquisition (FABIA) REF is based on a statistical method, which studies the variability among variables (genes) according to a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors.
FABIA: factor analysis for bicluster acquisition
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics
Medicine Computer Science