RNA-seq differential expression studies: more sequence or more replication? RNA-seq is replacing microarrays as the primary tool for gene expression studies.  Many RNA-seq studies have used insufficient biological replicates, resulting in low statistical power and inefficient use of sequencing resources.


 We also propose a cost-effectiveness metric for guiding the design of large-scale RNA-seq DE studies.  Our analysis showed that sequencing less reads and performing more biological replication is an effective strategy to increase power and accuracy in large-scale differential expression RNA-seq studies, and provided new insights into efficient experiment design of RNA-seq studies.



RNA-seq
RNA-seq is replacing microarrays as the primary tool for gene expression studies. 
microarrays
The expression data is deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus under the accession ID GSE51403.
Gene Expression Omnibus