Online Analytical Processing (OLAP): A Fast and Effective Data Mining Tool for Gene Expression Databases

摘要

Gene expression databases contain a wealth of information, butcurrent data mining tools are limited in their speed andeffectiveness in extracting meaningful biological knowledge fromthem. Online analytical processing (OLAP) can be used as asupplement to cluster analysis for fast and effective data miningof gene expression databases. We used Analysis Services 2000, aproduct that ships with SQLServer2000, to construct an OLAP cubethat was used to mine a time series experiment designed toidentify genes associated with resistance of soybean to thesoybean cyst nematode, a devastating pest of soybean. The data forthese experiments is stored in the soybean genomics and microarraydatabase (SGMD). A number of candidate resistance genes andpathways were found. Compared to traditional cluster analysis ofgene expression data, OLAP was more effective and faster infinding biologically meaningful information. OLAP is availablefrom a number of vendors and can work with any relational databasemanagement system through OLE DB.