Why breast cancer signatures are no better than random signatures explained

Random signature superiority (RSS) occurs when random gene signatures outperform published and/or known signatures. Unlike reproducibility and generalizability issues, RSS is relatively underexplored. Yet, understanding it is imperative for better analytical outcome. In breast cancer, RSS correlates...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Goh, Wilson Wen Bin, Wong, Limsoon
Other Authors: School of Biological Sciences
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/137544
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:Random signature superiority (RSS) occurs when random gene signatures outperform published and/or known signatures. Unlike reproducibility and generalizability issues, RSS is relatively underexplored. Yet, understanding it is imperative for better analytical outcome. In breast cancer, RSS correlates strongly with enrichment for proliferation genes and signature size. Removal of proliferation genes from random signatures reduces the predictive power of random signatures. Almost all genes are correlated to a certain extent with the proliferation signature, making complete elimination of its confounding effects impossible. RSS goes beyond breast cancer, because it also exists in other diseases; it is especially strong in other cancers in a platform-independent manner, and less severe, but present nonetheless, in nonproliferative diseases.