Discovering subgroups of patients from DNA copy number data using NMF on compacted matrices.

ABSTRACT: In the study of complex genetic diseases, the identification of subgroups of patients sharing similar genetic characteristics represents a challenging task, for example, to improve treatment decision. One type of genetic lesion, frequently investigated in such disorders, is the change of the DNA copy number (CN) at specific genomic traits. Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) is a standard technique to reduce the dimensionality of a data set and to cluster data samples, while keeping its most relevant information in meaningful components. Thus, it can be used to discover subgroups of patients from CN profiles. It is however computationally impractical for very high dimensional data, such as CN microarray data. Deciding the most suitable number of subgroups is also a challenging problem.

SUBMITTER: de Campos CP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3835832 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature