Antibody Analysis: A Distinct Bioinformatics Challenge
The detection of antibodies produces data that is fundamentally different from gene expression data. The assumptions underlying bioinformatics pipelines developed for gene expression analysis often do not apply to antibody analysis.
| Antibodies | Gene Expression | |
|---|---|---|
| Variability in the population | High from patient to patient and within populations | Low from patient to patient and within populations |
| Data comparison | Binary Present or Absent | Continuum Upregulated > Unchanged > Downregulated |
| Frequency of hits | Low Only a small percentage (10%–30%) of a population will be positive for a given antibody | High Gene expression changes are frequent in a population, and it’s common to find genes that are either upregulated or downregulated in a significant portion of individuals. |
