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Count-based differential expression analysis of RNA sequencing data using R and Bioconductor

Nature Protocols volume 8, pages 1765–1786 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) has been rapidly adopted for the profiling of transcriptomes in many areas of biology, including studies into gene regulation, development and disease. Of particular interest is the discovery of differentially expressed genes across different conditions (e.g., tissues, perturbations) while optionally adjusting for other systematic factors that affect the data-collection process. There are a number of subtle yet crucial aspects of these analyses, such as read counting, appropriate treatment of biological variability, quality control checks and appropriate setup of statistical modeling. Several variations have been presented in the literature, and there is a need for guidance on current best practices. This protocol presents a state-of-the-art computational and statistical RNA-seq differential expression analysis workflow largely based on the free open-source R language and Bioconductor software and, in particular, on two widely used tools, DESeq and edgeR. Hands-on time for typical small experiments (e.g., 4–10 samples) can be <1 h, with computation time <1 d using a standard desktop PC.

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Figure 1: Count-based differential expression pipeline for RNA-seq data using edgeR and/or DESeq.
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4: Plots of sample relations.
Figure 5: Plots of mean-variance relationship and dispersion.
Figure 6: M ('minus') versus A ('add') plots for RNA-seq data.
Figure 7

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Gene Expression Omnibus

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Acknowledgements

We thank X. Zhou for comparing counting methods, O. Nikolayeva for feedback on an earlier version of the manuscript and participants in the European Conference on Computational Biology Workshop (Basel, September 2012) for their feedback. G.K.S. acknowledges funding from a National Health and Medical Research Council Project Grant (no. 1023454). D.J.M. acknowledges funding from the General Sir John Monash Foundation, Australia. M.D.R. wishes to acknowledge funding from the University of Zurich's Research Priority Program in Systems Biology and Functional Genomics and Swiss National Science Foundation Project grant (no. 143883). S.A., W.H. and M.D.R. acknowledge funding from the European Commission through the 7th Framework Collaborative Project RADIANT (grant agreement no. 305626).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Genome Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany

    Simon Anders & Wolfgang Huber

  2. Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Davis J McCarthy

  3. Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Davis J McCarthy

  4. Bioinformatics Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

    Yunshun Chen & Gordon K Smyth

  5. Department of Medical Biology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Yunshun Chen

  6. Functional Genomics Center UNI ETH, Zurich, Switzerland

    Michal Okoniewski

  7. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Gordon K Smyth

  8. Institute of Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Mark D Robinson

  9. SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Mark D Robinson

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Contributions

S.A. and W.H. are authors of the DESeq package. D.J.M., Y.C., G.K.S. and M.D.R. are authors of the edgeR package. S.A., M.O., W.H. and M.D.R. initiated the protocol format on the basis of the ECCB 2012 Workshop. S.A. and M.D.R. wrote the first draft and additions were made from all authors.

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Correspondence to Wolfgang Huber or Mark D Robinson.

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Supplementary Data

Archive of files used in the protocol. This file is a compressed archive with the following files: the intermediate COUNT files used, a count table used in the statistical analysis, the metadata table and the original “SraRunInfo” CSV file that was downloaded from the NCBI's SRA. (ZIP 533 kb)

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Anders, S., McCarthy, D., Chen, Y. et al. Count-based differential expression analysis of RNA sequencing data using R and Bioconductor. Nat Protoc 8, 1765–1786 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2013.099

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