Normalized coefficient of variation (nCV): a method to evaluate circadian clock robustness in population scale data

Abstract

Robust oscillation of clock genes is a core feature of the circadian system. Relative amplitude (rAMP) measures the robustness of clock gene oscillations, but only works for longitudinal samples. We lack a method for estimating robust oscillations from human samples without labeled time. We show that the normalized coefficient of variation (nCV) is linearly correlated with rAMP, independent of time labels. Using nCV, we found that clock gene oscillations are consistently dampened in tumors compared to non-tumors, suggesting a new therapeutic target in cancer treatment by enhancing clock robustness. nCV can provide a simple measure of the robustness of clock gene oscillations in any population-level dataset. Availability and implementationThe nCV web application is available on the GitHub repository (https://github.com/gangwug/nCV).