A Novel Algorithm For the Analysis Of Array Cgh Data

DNA copy number aberrations are common in cancer and other diseases. Newly developed array CGH technologies enable simultaneous measurement of DNA copy numbers for tens of thousands of sites within a genome. In array CGH experiments, DNA copy number of a test DNA sample relative to the DNA copy number of a reference DNA sample is measured. These relative measurements are mapped to their corresponding chromosomal locations. DNA copy gains and losses are then detected as deviations from the normal reference at specific chromosomal locations. In this paper, we introduce a novel algorithm to automatically identify the regions of DNA copy number gain and loss from array CGH data through a multi-scale edge detection algorithm. We demonstrate the method on two array CGH datasets. Our results show that this method can be successfully applied for the analysis of array CGH biological data.