A response to information criterion-based clustering with order-restricted candidate profiles in short time-course microarray experiments

Background  

For gene expression data obtained from a time-course microarray experiment, Liu et al. 1] developed a new algorithm for clustering genes with similar expression profiles over time. Performance of their proposal was compared with three other methods including the order-restricted inference based methodology of Peddada et al. 2, 3]. In this note we point out several inaccuracies in Liu et al. 1] and conclude that the order-restricted inference based methodology of Peddada et al. (programmed in the software ORIOGEN) indeed operates at the desired nominal Type 1 error level, an important feature of a statistical decision rule, while being computationally substantially faster than indicated by Liu et al. 1].