528 Statistics and Data Analysis for Microarrays Using R and Bioconductor
has such a small fold change that it probably will not be possible to confirm
it with an independent assay. The arguments presented by both sides have
their merits in each case. Because the two criteria capture slightly different
phenomena, it is useful to use at those genes that have large fold changes,
as well as significant p-values. The volcano plo ts are a very useful tool to
visualize such simultaneous requirements.
A volcano plot has the fold changes on the horizontal axis and the p-values
on the vertical axis. In this plot, the horizontal axis can use a lo g2 scale on
which one unit corresponds to a two-fold change, a nd the vertical axis can use
a negative log10 scale