New Normalization Methods using Support Vector Machine Regression Approach in cDNA Microarray Analysis

There are many sources of systematic variations in cDNA microarray experiments which affect the measured gene expression levels like differences in labeling efficiency between the two fluorescent dyes. Print-tip lowess normalization is used in situations where dye biases can depend on spot overall intensity and/or spatial location within the array. However, print-tip lowess normalization performs poorly in situation where error variability for each gene is heterogeneous over intensity ranges. We proposed the new print-tip normalization methods based on support vector machine regression(SVMR) and support vector machine quantile regression(SVMQR). SVMQR was derived by employing the basic principle of support vector machine (SVM) for the estimation of the linear and nonlinear quantile regressions. We applied our proposed methods to previous cDNA micro array data of apolipoprotein-AI-knockout (apoAI-KO) mice, diet-induced obese mice, and genistein-fed obese mice. From our statistical analysis, we found that the proposed methods perform better than the existing print-tip lowess normalization method.