Improved processing of microarray data using image reconstruction techniques

Spotted cDNA microarray data analysis suffers from various problems such as noise from a variety of sources, missing data, inconsistency, and, of course, the presence of outliers. This paper introduces a new method that dramatically reduces the noise when processing the original image data. The proposed approach recreates the microarray slide image, as it would have been with all the genes removed. By subtracting this background recreation from the original, the gene ratios can be calculated with more precision and less influence from outliers and other artifacts that would normally make the analysis of this data more difficult. The new technique is also beneficial, as it does not rely on the accurate fitting of a region to each gene, with its only requirement being an approximate coordinate. In experiments conducted, the new method was tested against one of the mainstream methods of processing spotted microarray images. Our method is shown to produce much less variation in gene measurements. This evidence is supported by clustering results that show a marked improvement in accuracy.