Z-score for human-microarray and mouse ish-data

Technical
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#1

Hi,
the human micro-array data provides the z-score and according to
http://help.brain-map.org/display/humanbrain/API
“* a vector of z-score values in the same order as the “samples” array. Note: z-score is computed independently for each probe over all donors and samples.”
i re-calculated the z-score for each probe with this formula, but i am unable to obtain the same z-score-values as provided in the dataset:
(expression_level - expression_level.mean())/expression_level.std()

I obtained data using this rma-query:
“http://api.brain-map.org/api/v2/data/query.json?criteria=”
f"model::Probe,rma::criteria,gene[acronym$il{self.geneAcronym}],rma::options[num_rows$eqall],"
“pipe::list[probes$eq’id’],”
“service::human_microarray_expression[probes$eq$probes]”

You can get the expression-levels and z-scores for the second probe here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1e3bBJGT-gX7eElDbKe1blXDpV-D07Cxs

how do I correctly calculate the z-score on behalf of this data?

some background: we are trying to compare z-scores for human-microarray data with mouse ish-data , which is unfortunatelly not providing z-scores. alternatively: how can we obtain z-scores for ISH using the api/sdk that are consistent with the z-scores from microarray-data?

thanks and regards
Christoph

#2

Hi @christoph-hue, Z scoring of the microarray data has already been address in this community forum post. Can you take a look at that and reply to this thread if it does not address your issue? I don’t know how to calculate Z scores in the mouse ISH data so if that ends up being necessary, someone else will need to reply.

#3

hi @jeremyinseattle , I’ve already read it but it doesn’t really address the issue. my questions basically are: can I calculate the z-scores provided for one probe using the expression-levels of this probe and if so, how? because I don’t get the same values with the formula stated here: What is the Z score reference value in RNAseq GBM data?
you might want to clarify what the x is in your formula, in case it isn’t the expression-level (which I assumed). thanks!

#4

If the Z score formula still doesn’t work, it may be the difference between downloading the data at the level of samples vs. structures. Can you try following this steps from this post for downloading the data at the sample level and then calculating the Z scores to see if you get the expected answer? You are correct that “x” is the vector corresponding to expression levels for a given probe when calculating Z scores. If this still doesn’t solve your problem, or if you would prefer to use the API, please post again and I’ll see if I can find someone else to address the question.

#5

Hi again,

I compared the data
a) using the rma-api and its provided z-scores
b) calculating z-score manually using the expression-levels obtain by b)
c) downloading expression-levels as you described and recalculating z-scores
d) same approach as c) but downloading z-scores directly

regardless of whether I download the log2-intensities or obtain them (then they are called expression-levels) using the rma-api, recalculating z-scores gives me the same results - but they differ from the pre-computed z-scores.
I checked this by flattening all probe-values and sorting them. if all values for each approach are equal, then the value-lists should be the same as well.
so:

  • pre-computed z-scores of a) do not match the manually calculcated ones of b) and c)
  • pre-computed z-scores of d) match the pre-computed ones of a), but hence also not b) and c)
  • b) and c) are the same

you can check out my the zip-file I provide in the following. it contains the results and the code / pseudo-code I used:

Could you please check how to retrieve the same z-scores you provide using the expression-levels and expand on how you managed to do this? Thank you very much!

Furthermore, I wonder why the z-scores are calculated on a per-probe basis. according to the normalization white-paper (http://help.brain-map.org/download/attachments/2818165/Normalization_WhitePaper.pdf) expression-levels have been normalized across brain-regions and donors. wouldn’t the fold-change be more robust if expression-levels from all probes were taken into account? having high-variance expression-levels in a specific well, representing tissue from a specific region, would lead to skewed z-scores for the other samples of this probe, right?

Thanks in advance and kind regards
Christoph

#6

Hi @christoph-hue. Thanks for the thorough response. Let me ask the scientist who did these calculations and someone will get back to you in the next week or so.