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A Problem With the Correlation Coefficient as a Measure of Gene Expression Divergence

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 00:36 authored by Vini Pereira, David Waxman, Adam Eyre-WalkerAdam Eyre-Walker
The correlation coefficient is commonly used as a measure of the divergence of gene expression profiles between different species. Here we point out a potential problem with this statistic: if measurement error is large relative to the differences in expression, the correlation coefficient will tend to show high divergence for genes that have relatively uniform levels of expression across tissues or time points. We show that genes with a conserved uniform pattern of expression have significantly higher levels of expression divergence, when measured using the correlation coefficient, than other genes, in a data set from mouse, rat, and human. We also show that the Euclidean distance yields low estimates of expression divergence for genes with a conserved uniform pattern of expression.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Genetics

ISSN

0016-6731

Issue

4

Volume

183

Page range

1597-1600

Pages

4.0

Department affiliated with

  • Evolution, Behaviour and Environment Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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