Finding Co-Clusters of Genes and Clinical Parameters

For better understanding of genetic mechanisms underlying clinical observations, we often want to determine which genes and clinical traits are interrelated. We introduce a computational method that can find co-clusters or groups of genes and clinical parameters that are believed to be closely related to each other based upon given empirical information. The proposed method was tested with data from an Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) study and identified statistically significant co-clusters of genes and clinical traits. The validation of our results with Gene Ontology (GO) as well as the literature suggest that the proposed method can provide biologically meaningful co-clusters of genes and traits.