moderTestXgrp: Multiple Moderated Pairwise t-tests From limma

In wrMisc: Analyze Experimental High-Throughput (Omics) Data

Multiple Moderated Pairwise t-tests From limma

Description

This function runs (selected or all) pairwise combinations of moderated t-tests from package 'limma' on each line of data against. Note: This function requires the package limma from bioconductor. The limma contrast-matrix has to be read by column, the lines in the contrast-matrix containing '+1' will be compared to the '-1' lines, eg grpA-grpB .

Usage

moderTestXgrp(
  dat,
  grp,
  useComparison = NULL,
  limmaOutput = TRUE,
  addResults = c("lfdr", "FDR", "Mval", "means"),
  testOrientation = "=",
  sep = NULL,
  silent = FALSE,
  debug = FALSE,
  callFrom = NULL
)

Arguments

dat	matrix or data.frame with rows for multiple (independent) tests, use ONLY with 2 groups; assumed as log2-data !!!
grp	(factor) describes column-relationship of 'dat' (1st factor is considered as reference -> orientation of M-values !!)
useComparison	(character or matrix) optional way to indicate which pairwise comparisons should be performed; if character '–' should be used to separate 2 groups out of argument 'grp' (eg 'sample–reference'), where the 2nd entity will be taken as reference; of course this separator should not occur in 'grp' (if present it will be automatically repaced by '__' in 'grp' ); if the elements of 'grp' do not contain any '-' this may also be used (and will be replaced internally by '–')
limmaOutput	(logical) return full (or extended) MArrayLM-object from limma or 'FAlSE' for only the (uncorrected) p.values
addResults	(character) types of results to add besides basic limma-output, data are assumed to be log2 ! (eg "lfdr" using fdrtool-package, "FDR" or "BH" for BH-FDR, "BY" for BY-FDR, "bonferroni" for Bonferroni-correction, "qValue" for lfdr by qvalue, "Mval", "means" or "nonMod" for non-moderated test and he equivaent all (other) multiple testing corrections chosen here)
testOrientation	(character) for one-sided test (">","greater" or "<","less"), NOTE : 2nd grp is considered control/reference, '<' will identify grp1 < grp2
sep	(NULL] or character of length=1) optional custom choice for separator for column-names of pairwise comparisons, otherwise determined as charcter(-set) not occurring in grp
silent	(logical) suppress messages
debug	(logical) additional messages for debugging
callFrom	(character) allow easier tracking of message(s) produced

Details

When multiple pairwise comparisons will be run, first a global linear model will be estimated and the particular pairwise comparisons will then be performed using a contrast-matrix. This process is described with the bioconductor package limma which is used underneith.

By default (no useComparison given) all possible pairwise comparisons will be run using 1st group from 'grp' as reference. Besides, it is also possible to custom choose which comparisons should be run (and which order of sample/reference) via the argument useComparison using the character vector '–' as separator for the two groups of samples (referring to argument grp) to be compared. This will be interpreted as 'sample–reference' (additional space around the separator, if present, will be removed), thus the second element will be used as reference. Furthermore, the argument useComparison may be a matrix of 2 columns (for sample and reference) where each line represents a pairwise comparison that should be run.

As effort for compatibility to previous versions and compatibility to standard writing in limma the group-separator '-' in useComparison has limited support : This (single character) separator will be internally converted to '–' and in absence of '-' in argument grp, output will have the initial (single character) separator '-'.

Concerning the separator used when reporting results for pairwise comparisons : If argument grp contains any '-', comparisons of groups will always (!) get reported using '–' as separator to avoid any confusion. In case useComparison is a matrix, the reported comparisons will have '-' if grp does not contain as well any '-', otherwise '–' will be used (to support compatibility with results from limma).

Please note, that in the output of this function the Benjamini-Hochberg adjusted p-values are called 'FDR' (see argument addResults).

Value

This function returns a limma-type MA-object (list), or when problems are encountered NULL

See Also

moderTest2grp for single comparisons, lmFit and the eBayes-family of functions in package limma

Examples

grp3 <- factor(rep(LETTERS[c(3,1,4)],c(2,3,3)))
set.seed(2017); t8 <- matrix(round(rnorm(208*8,10,0.4),2), ncol=8,
  dimnames=list(paste(letters[],rep(1:8,each=26),sep=""), paste0(grp3, c(1:2,1:3,1:3))))
t8[3:6,1:2] <- t8[3:6,1:2] +3                    # augment lines 3:6 (c-f) 
t8[5:8,c(1:2,6:8)] <- t8[5:8,c(1:2,6:8)] -1.5    # lower lines 
t8[6:7,3:5] <- t8[6:7,3:5] +2.2                  # augment lines 
## expect to find C/A in c,d,g, (h)
## expect to find C/D in c,d,e,f
## expect to find A/D in f,g,(h) 
test8 <- moderTestXgrp(t8, grp3) 

## Custom choice of what to compare
test8b <- moderTestXgrp(t8, grp3, useComparison="D-A") 
head(test8b$FDR)
head(test8b$Mval)
## One can also use functions from package limma to see more
library(limma)
topTable(test8b, n=5)

wrMisc documentation built on March 9, 2026, 5:07 p.m.