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BioMed Central, BMC Bioinformatics, 1(23), 2022

DOI: 10.1186/s12859-022-05019-9

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lmerSeq: an R package for analyzing transformed RNA-Seq data with linear mixed effects models

Journal article published in 2022 by Brian E. Vestal ORCID, Elizabeth Wynn, Camille M. Moore
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Abstract Background Studies that utilize RNA Sequencing (RNA-Seq) in conjunction with designs that introduce dependence between observations (e.g. longitudinal sampling) require specialized analysis tools to accommodate this additional complexity. This R package contains a set of utilities to fit linear mixed effects models to transformed RNA-Seq counts that properly account for this dependence when performing statistical analyses. Results In a simulation study comparing lmerSeq and two existing methodologies that also work with transformed RNA-Seq counts, we found that lmerSeq was comprehensively better in terms of nominal error rate control and statistical power. Conclusions Existing R packages for analyzing transformed RNA-Seq data with linear mixed models are limited in the variance structures they allow and/or the transformation methods they support. The lmerSeq package offers more flexibility in both of these areas and gave substantially better results in our simulations.