Commentary
A simple spreadsheet-based, MIAME-supportive format for microarray data: MAGE-TAB
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* Corresponding authors: Tim F Rayner rayner@ebi.ac.uk - Alvis Brazma brazma@ebi.ac.uk
1 European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK
2 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
3 MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College Hammersmith Hospital Campus, London, UK
4 Department of Biostatistics, John Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA
5 Center for Bioinformatics and Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA
6 Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
7 Rosetta Biosoftware, Rosetta Inpharmatics, LLC, Seattle, USA
8 Bergen Center for Computational Science, Computational Biology Unit, University of Bergen, Norway
9 Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA
10 Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
BMC Bioinformatics 2006, 7:489 doi:10.1186/1471-2105-7-489
Published: 6 November 2006Abstract
Background
Sharing of microarray data within the research community has been greatly facilitated by the development of the disclosure and communication standards MIAME and MAGE-ML by the MGED Society. However, the complexity of the MAGE-ML format has made its use impractical for laboratories lacking dedicated bioinformatics support.
Results
We propose a simple tab-delimited, spreadsheet-based format, MAGE-TAB, which will become a part of the MAGE microarray data standard and can be used for annotating and communicating microarray data in a MIAME compliant fashion.
Conclusion
MAGE-TAB will enable laboratories without bioinformatics experience or support to manage, exchange and submit well-annotated microarray data in a standard format using a spreadsheet. The MAGE-TAB format is self-contained, and does not require an understanding of MAGE-ML or XML.