Originally posted by chouf
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Would you want to base actual estimated expression levels off such genes, as in a differential gene expression analyssis? No, I would say not. In the literature, you will find people using some minimum mapped read count for inclusion in their esitmations of expression levels. So, only genes having a minimum number of uniquely mapped reads of say, greater than 5 or greater than 10 are common numbers (or so is my take from published analyses).
So there are two questions.
1. Was a gene/transcript/feature detected at all - basically presence or absence of a mappable feature?
2. Which genes have sufficient reads to provide reliable estimates of relative expression?
For 1. again if you set up your mapping well (read QV stringency and mapping QV stringency), then even a single unique mapped read is evidence for the detection of a gene or transcript.
For 2. I would not be comfortable actually using any genes with fewer than 10 mapped reads in any relative expression estimates (since this is now a question of having enough data to confidently estimate an actual level of expression, not merely the presence or absence of a feature).
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