An expression index for Affymetrix GeneChips based on the generalized logarithm

Motivation: Affymetrix GeneChip high-density oligonucleotide arrays interrogate a single transcript using multiple short 25mer probes. Usually, a necessary step in the analysis of experiments using these GeneChips is to summarize each of these probe sets into a single expression index that can then be used for determining differential expression, for classification, for clustering, and for other analyses. In this paper, we propose a new expression index that is competitive with the best existing methods, and superior in many cases. We call this expression index method GLA, for GLog Average, since after normalization at the probe level, we take the mean generalized logarithm of perfect match probes. Results: In this paper, we use Affycomp as the primary tool to assess the weaknesses and strengths of GLA. Comparisons are made between GLA and most widely used summary methods (RMA, MAS5.0 and MBEI) in great detail. The substantial reduction in variability and increased ability to detect differential expression, together with the simplicity of implementation, make GLA a plausible candidate for analysis of Affymetrix GeneChip data.