{"id":577,"date":"2013-08-15T22:02:47","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T22:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/?p=577"},"modified":"2026-02-25T20:00:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T20:00:56","slug":"a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/","title":{"rendered":"A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\">Xiao Su, Ph.D. Candidate<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Division of Biostatistics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Recently, we published a paper that identifies genes with bimodal expression using next generation RNAseq data [1]. Identifying bimodally expressed genes is very important since such genes can be used to classify diseases and thus are good candidates of biomarkers [2-3]. The authors applied three mixture models (Negative Binomial, Generalized Poisson and Lognormal) to model RNAseq data and found the Lognormal works well in both real and simulated data. The application to The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) [4] breast cancer RNAseq data not only correctly replicated well-known bimodal genes including HER2, ER and PR, but also discovered many novel bimodal genes. This method may be further developed using nonparametric mixture models since the data might not be well characterized by any of the above three distributions. Also, it is possible that the data may actually be a mixture of more than two distributions. A good way to implement the extended models could be through Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC), which is being addressed by my ongoing research.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Reference<\/b><\/p>\n<p>[1] Tong, Pan, Yong Chen, Xiao Su, and Kevin R. Coombes. &#8220;SIBER: systematic identification of bimodally expressed genes using RNAseq data.&#8221;\u00a0Bioinformatics29, no. 5 (2013): 605-613.<\/p>\n<p>[2] Teschendorff, Andrew E., Ahmad Miremadi, Sarah E. Pinder, Ian O. Ellis, and Carlos Caldas. &#8220;An immune response gene expression module identifies a good prognosis subtype in estrogen receptor negative breast cancer.&#8221;\u00a0Genome Biol8, no. 8 (2007): R157.<\/p>\n<p>[3] Teschendorff, Andrew E., Ahmad Miremadi, Sarah E. Pinder, Ian O. Ellis, and Carlos Caldas. &#8220;An immune response gene expression module identifies a good prognosis subtype in estrogen receptor negative breast cancer.&#8221;\u00a0Genome Biol8, no. 8 (2007): R157.<\/p>\n<p>[4] McLendon, Roger, Allan Friedman, Darrell Bigner, Erwin G. Van Meir, Daniel J. Brat, Gena M. Mastrogianakis, Jeffrey J. Olson et al. &#8220;Comprehensive genomic characterization defines human glioblastoma genes and core pathways.&#8221;\u00a0Nature455, no. 7216 (2008): 1061-1068.<!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Xiao Su, Ph.D. Candidate Division of Biostatistics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA &nbsp; Recently, we published a paper that identifies genes with bimodal expression using next generation RNAseq data [1]. Identifying bimodally expressed genes is very important since such genes can be used to classify diseases and thus [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su) - JMG Contact blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su) - JMG Contact blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Xiao Su, Ph.D. Candidate Division of Biostatistics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA &nbsp; Recently, we published a paper that identifies genes with bimodal expression using next generation RNAseq data [1]. Identifying bimodally expressed genes is very important since such genes can be used to classify diseases and thus [...]Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"JMG Contact blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-15T22:02:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-25T20:00:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hqqu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@HuiQiQu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"hqqu\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/2013\\\/08\\\/15\\\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/2013\\\/08\\\/15\\\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"hqqu\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/be0250f8d5b52412c3e7c222dabd591b\"},\"headline\":\"A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su)\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-08-15T22:02:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-25T20:00:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/2013\\\/08\\\/15\\\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":326,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/2013\\\/08\\\/15\\\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/2013\\\/08\\\/15\\\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/2013\\\/08\\\/15\\\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\\\/\",\"name\":\"A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su) - JMG Contact blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-08-15T22:02:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-25T20:00:56+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/2013\\\/08\\\/15\\\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/2013\\\/08\\\/15\\\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/2013\\\/08\\\/15\\\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/\",\"name\":\"JMG Contact blog\",\"description\":\"JMG Contact blog\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"JMG Contact blog\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/files\\\/2017\\\/10\\\/blog-logo-jmg.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/files\\\/2017\\\/10\\\/blog-logo-jmg.png\",\"width\":300,\"height\":34,\"caption\":\"JMG Contact blog\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/be0250f8d5b52412c3e7c222dabd591b\",\"name\":\"hqqu\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/920bc4e81500cde88def4bfd7775029cb154e422c5460b9cf80d5c47137d6f35?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/920bc4e81500cde88def4bfd7775029cb154e422c5460b9cf80d5c47137d6f35?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/920bc4e81500cde88def4bfd7775029cb154e422c5460b9cf80d5c47137d6f35?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"hqqu\"},\"description\":\"Huiqi Qu has a background as a physician trained in internal medicine and a PhD in Experimental Medicine (Endocrinology). His research applies human genetics and multi-omics to complex and pediatric diseases, including GWAS, polygenic risk scores (PRS), single-cell transcriptomics, and integrative genomics to support precision medicine and clinical translation.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/HuiQiQu\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/jmg\\\/author\\\/hqiqu\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su) - JMG Contact blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su) - JMG Contact blog","og_description":"Xiao Su, Ph.D. Candidate Division of Biostatistics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA &nbsp; Recently, we published a paper that identifies genes with bimodal expression using next generation RNAseq data [1]. Identifying bimodally expressed genes is very important since such genes can be used to classify diseases and thus [...]Read More...","og_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/","og_site_name":"JMG Contact blog","article_published_time":"2013-08-15T22:02:47+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-02-25T20:00:56+00:00","author":"hqqu","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@HuiQiQu","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"hqqu","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/"},"author":{"name":"hqqu","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/#\/schema\/person\/be0250f8d5b52412c3e7c222dabd591b"},"headline":"A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su)","datePublished":"2013-08-15T22:02:47+00:00","dateModified":"2026-02-25T20:00:56+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/"},"wordCount":326,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/#organization"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/","url":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/","name":"A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su) - JMG Contact blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-08-15T22:02:47+00:00","dateModified":"2026-02-25T20:00:56+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/2013\/08\/15\/a-novel-statistical-approach-for-rna-seq-data\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A novel statistical approach for RNA-seq data (Contributed by Xiao Su)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/","name":"JMG Contact blog","description":"JMG Contact blog","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/#organization","name":"JMG Contact blog","url":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/files\/2017\/10\/blog-logo-jmg.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/files\/2017\/10\/blog-logo-jmg.png","width":300,"height":34,"caption":"JMG Contact blog"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/#\/schema\/person\/be0250f8d5b52412c3e7c222dabd591b","name":"hqqu","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920bc4e81500cde88def4bfd7775029cb154e422c5460b9cf80d5c47137d6f35?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920bc4e81500cde88def4bfd7775029cb154e422c5460b9cf80d5c47137d6f35?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920bc4e81500cde88def4bfd7775029cb154e422c5460b9cf80d5c47137d6f35?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"hqqu"},"description":"Huiqi Qu has a background as a physician trained in internal medicine and a PhD in Experimental Medicine (Endocrinology). His research applies human genetics and multi-omics to complex and pediatric diseases, including GWAS, polygenic risk scores (PRS), single-cell transcriptomics, and integrative genomics to support precision medicine and clinical translation.","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/HuiQiQu"],"url":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/author\/hqiqu\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/jmg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}