Unlike gene expression
The manifestation of autoantibodies is fundamentally different than gene expression, generating very different data. The fundamental assumptions underlying bioinformatics pipelines designed for gene expression analysis do not necessarily apply to autoantibody analysis.
| Autoantibodies | 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 autoantibody | High Gene expression occurs at a high frequency in a population. Finding a gene that is upregulated or downregulated in a large portion of the population is common. |
