Motif Enrichment Analysis: a unified framework and an evaluation on ChIP data

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Abstract
A major goal of molecular biology is determining the mechanisms that control the transcription of genes. Motif Enrichment Analysis (MEA) seeks to determine which DNA-binding transcription factors control the transcription of a set of genes by detecting enrichment of known binding motifs in the genes' regulatory regions. Typically, the biologist specifies a set of genes believed to be co-regulated and a library of known DNA-binding models for transcription factors, and MEA determines which (if any) of the factors may be direct regulators of the genes. Since the number of factors with known DNA-binding models is rapidly increasing as a result of high-throughput technologies, MEA is becoming increasingly useful. In this paper, we explore ways to make MEA applicable in more settings, and evaluate the efficacy of a number of MEA approaches.