A note on statistical repeatability and study design for high-throughput assays

Characterizing the technical precision of measurements is a necessary stage in the planning of experiments and in the formal sample size calculation for optimal design. Instruments that measure multiple analytes simultaneously, such as in high-throughput assays arising in biomedical research, pose p...

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Bibliografski detalji
Glavni autori: Nicholson, G, Holmes, C
Format: Journal article
Jezik:English
Izdano: John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2016
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author Nicholson, G
Holmes, C
author_facet Nicholson, G
Holmes, C
author_sort Nicholson, G
collection OXFORD
description Characterizing the technical precision of measurements is a necessary stage in the planning of experiments and in the formal sample size calculation for optimal design. Instruments that measure multiple analytes simultaneously, such as in high-throughput assays arising in biomedical research, pose particular challenges from a statistical perspective. The current most popular method for assessing precision of high-throughput assays is by scatterplotting data from technical replicates. Here, we question the statistical rationale of this approach from both an empirical and theoretical perspective, illustrating our discussion using four example data sets from different genomic platforms. We demonstrate that such scatterplots convey little statistical information of relevance and are potentially highly misleading. We present an alternative framework for assessing the precision of high-throughput assays and planning biomedical experiments. Our methods are based on repeatability-a long-established statistical quantity also known as the intraclass correlation coefficient. We provide guidance and software for estimation and visualization of repeatability of high-throughput assays, and for its incorporation into study design.
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spelling oxford-uuid:18bc00b1-95ee-43bc-b0f3-6d7554849c092022-03-26T10:44:49ZA note on statistical repeatability and study design for high-throughput assaysJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:18bc00b1-95ee-43bc-b0f3-6d7554849c09EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd2016Nicholson, GHolmes, CCharacterizing the technical precision of measurements is a necessary stage in the planning of experiments and in the formal sample size calculation for optimal design. Instruments that measure multiple analytes simultaneously, such as in high-throughput assays arising in biomedical research, pose particular challenges from a statistical perspective. The current most popular method for assessing precision of high-throughput assays is by scatterplotting data from technical replicates. Here, we question the statistical rationale of this approach from both an empirical and theoretical perspective, illustrating our discussion using four example data sets from different genomic platforms. We demonstrate that such scatterplots convey little statistical information of relevance and are potentially highly misleading. We present an alternative framework for assessing the precision of high-throughput assays and planning biomedical experiments. Our methods are based on repeatability-a long-established statistical quantity also known as the intraclass correlation coefficient. We provide guidance and software for estimation and visualization of repeatability of high-throughput assays, and for its incorporation into study design.
spellingShingle Nicholson, G
Holmes, C
A note on statistical repeatability and study design for high-throughput assays
title A note on statistical repeatability and study design for high-throughput assays
title_full A note on statistical repeatability and study design for high-throughput assays
title_fullStr A note on statistical repeatability and study design for high-throughput assays
title_full_unstemmed A note on statistical repeatability and study design for high-throughput assays
title_short A note on statistical repeatability and study design for high-throughput assays
title_sort note on statistical repeatability and study design for high throughput assays
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