Functional enrichment analysis

Differential expression analysis can give you a list of genes that differ between groups of samples. In order to understadn the functional consequences of the observed differential gene regulation, you need to undertake functional enrichment analysis steps that are often considered as systems level analyses.

Functional enrichment analysis is a statistical method used to identify overrepresented biological pathways or functional categories in a set of genes. It is often used to gain insights into the biological functions and pathways that are potentially involved in a particular biological process or disease.

There are several types of functional enrichment analysis, including gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis, and pathway enrichment analysis. GO terms are standardized definitions of gene functions that are organized into a hierarchy, allowing researchers to identify the broad categories of functions that are overrepresented in their data. Pathways are sets of interconnected genes that are involved in specific biological processes, and pathway enrichment analysis can be used to identify pathways that are potentially involved in a particular biological process or disease.

Read through the subchapter 8.3.8 to gain general understanding of how functional enrichment analysis is done.

8.3 Gene expression analysis using high-throughput sequencing technologies | Computational Genomics with R