Digital measurement of gene expression in a cDNA micro-array

Gene expression can be quantitatively analyzed by hybridizing fluor-tagged mRNA to targets on a cDNA micro- array. Comparison of expression levels arising from co- hybridized samples is achieved by taking ratios of average expression levels for individual genes. The present paper concerns image processing to automatically segment digitized micro-arrays and measure median gene expression levees across cDNA target sites. The main difficulty arises from determination of the target site when signal intensity is low. Segmentation must be accomplished for target sites that can possess highly unstable geometry and consist of a relatively small number of pixels. Segmentation must also be computationally efficient. The present paper proposes a nonparametric statistical method that separates target site from local background using the Mann-Whitney test.