Defining diversity, specialization, and gene specificity in transcriptomes through information theory.

ABSTRACT: The transcriptome is a set of genes transcribed in a given tissue under specific conditions and can be characterized by a list of genes with their corresponding frequencies of transcription. Transcriptome changes can be measured by counting gene tags from mRNA libraries or by measuring light signals in DNA microarrays. In any case, it is difficult to completely comprehend the global changes that occur in the transcriptome, given that thousands of gene expression measurements are involved. We propose an approach to define and estimate the diversity and specialization of transcriptomes and gene specificity. We define transcriptome diversity as the Shannon entropy of its frequency distribution. Gene specificity is defined as the mutual information between the tissues and the corresponding tra

SUBMITTER: Martinez O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2443819 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature