(482a) Smart Pooling of mRNA Samples in Microarray Experiments

Pooling mRNA samples in microarray experiments refers to the act of mixing mRNA from different samples and testing that mix on a microarray chip. The usual motivations for pooling include reducing biological variation, saving on chips, or lack of sufficient mRNA from samples. Recent literature suggests that pooling mRNA samples may be possible but there are a number of theoretical and experimental issues to be explored. These studies employ simple pooling strategies where similar samples (replicates) are pooled to obtain an average value of gene expression. In this talk, we propose a smart pooling strategy, called poolMC, which would test a number of different samples (n) across several chips (m, where m