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A systematic evaluation of normalization methods and probe replicability using infinium EPIC methylation data

2023· article· en· 28 citations· W4323928821 on OpenAlex· 10.1186/s13148-023-01459-z

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A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.

Canadian affiliationAn author listed a Canadian institution. This is the only route the usual frame has.

The three-model screen

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All three models called this out of scope.

stratum: aff_core · design weight: 5595.24 (the sample is stratified; any rate computed without the weight is wrong)
Claude Opus 4.8OUT
genre: empirical
about Canada: no
confidence: medium

Evaluation of normalization pipelines and probe reliability on a methylation array; technical assay reproducibility, the polysemy trap rather than the reproducibility of research.

GPT-5.6 (high)OUT
genre: empirical
about Canada: no
confidence: high

This study examines technical probe replicability and normalization in a biomedical assay, not research reproducibility.

Grok 4.5OUT
genre: empirical
about Canada: no
confidence: high

Technical evaluation of methylation-array normalization and probe reliability; assay/lab-method performance, not metaresearch reproducibility.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The Infinium EPIC array measures the methylation status of > 850,000 CpG sites. The EPIC BeadChip uses a two-array design: Infinium Type I and Type II probes. These probe types exhibit different technical characteristics which may confound analyses. Numerous normalization and pre-processing methods have been developed to reduce probe type bias as well as other issues such as background and dye bias. METHODS: This study evaluates the performance of various normalization methods using 16 replicated samples and three metrics: absolute beta-value difference, overlap of non-replicated CpGs between replicate pairs, and effect on beta-value distributions. Additionally, we carried out Pearson's correlation and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) analyses using both raw and SeSAMe 2 normalized data. RESULTS: The method we define as SeSAMe 2, which consists of the application of the regular SeSAMe pipeline with an additional round of QC, pOOBAH masking, was found to be the best performing normalization method, while quantile-based methods were found to be the worst performing methods. Whole-array Pearson's correlations were found to be high. However, in agreement with previous studies, a substantial proportion of the probes on the EPIC array showed poor reproducibility (ICC < 0.50). The majority of poor performing probes have beta values close to either 0 or 1, and relatively low standard deviations. These results suggest that probe reliability is largely the result of limited biological variation rather than technical measurement variation. Importantly, normalizing the data with SeSAMe 2 dramatically improved ICC estimates, with the proportion of probes with ICC values > 0.50 increasing from 45.18% (raw data) to 61.35% (SeSAMe 2).

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The record

Venue
Clinical Epigenetics
Topic
Epigenetics and DNA Methylation
Field
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Canadian institutions
SickKids FoundationHospital for Sick ChildrenUniversity of TorontoHatch (Canada)
Funders
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Keywords
Normalization (sociology)Intraclass correlationReplicateStatisticsPearson product-moment correlation coefficientPercentileReproducibilityEPICCorrelationStandard deviationMathematics
Has abstract in OpenAlex
yes