I am wondering how to interpret values inside the gene expression levels contained within Bioconductor. For example, if we have the following commands via R
, we get:
source("https://bioconductor.org/biocLite.R")
biocLite("curatedOvarianData")
library(curatedOvarianData)
data(TCGA_eset)
head(exprs(TCGA_eset)["CXCL12",])
TCGA.20.0987 TCGA.23.1031 TCGA.24.0979 TCGA.23.1117 TCGA.23.1021 TCGA.04.1337
5.437923 6.307250 4.193748 9.071293 5.101532 6.697770
The above calls out gene expression levels for the gene CXCL12
. However, I am wondering how to interpret the values 5.437923
, 6.307250
, etc.
I know they are expression levels, but do they come with units? Do larger values mean greater cancer possibility?