Statistical Methods for Estimating Complexity from Competition Experiments between Two Populations

• Main Authors: Montgomery-Smith, Stephen, Schmidt, Francis J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-06-2013
• Subjects: Quantitative Biology - Populations and Evolution; Quantitative Biology - Quantitative Methods
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1306.0069

Journal of Theoretical Biology, Volume 264, Issue 3, 7 June 2010,
Pages 1043-1046 Often a screening or selection experiment targets a cell or tissue, which
presents many possible molecular targets and identifies a correspondingly large
number of ligands. We describe a statistical method to extract an estimate of
the complexity or richness of the set of molecular targets from competition
experiments between distinguishable ligands, including aptamers derived from
combinatorial experiments (SELEX or phage display). In simulations, the
nonparametric statistic provides a robust estimate of complexity from a 100x100
matrix of competition experiments, which is clearly feasible in high-throughput
format. The statistic and method are potentially applicable to other ligand
binding situations.