Coexpression analyses

This chapter focuses on the different ways to do coexpression analysis. It is important to stress that coexpression analysis is not just testing a given tissue for two or more targets using two or more chromogens and then using a system such as a Nuance to dissect the data. Although this approach is certainly useful, many times you can do coexpression analysis on a given tissue with just one chromogen. This can be achieved when the two (or more) different targets localize to either different cell types or different subcellular compartments. This chapter also stresses the importance of using serial sections whenever doing coexpression analysis. This allows you to analyze the same groups of cells for two or more targets separately and then to do the coexpression analysis on the same tissue. In most cases, the analysis of the serial section data will allow you to reach the key conclusions about the relative distribution of the two or more targets. Finally, this chapter gives a great deal of attention to the coexpression analysis of a microRNA and its putative target, given the importance of this topic to microRNA research.