Evaluation of Replicate Number and Sequencing Depth in Toxicology Dose-Response RNA-seq

Abstract

Sequencing depth and biological replication represent key experimental design considerations in toxicogenomics and risk assessment. However, their relative impacts on differential gene expression analysis remain unclear. Using an 8-dose chemical (Prochloraz) perturbation RNA-seq dataset in A549 cells, we systematically subsampled sequencing depth (5–100 %) and replicates (2–4) to evaluate effects on number of differentially expressed genes. While dose was the primary variance driver, replication had a greater influence than depth for optimizing detection power. With only 2 replicates, over 80% of the ∼2000 differential genes were unique to specific depths, indicating high variability. Increasing to 4 replicates substantially improved reproducibility, with over 550 genes consistently identified across most depths, representing 30% of the total differential genes. Higher replicates also increased the rate of overlap of benchmark dose pathways and precision of median benchmark dose estimates. However, key gene ontology pathways related to DNA replication, cell cycle, and division were consistently captured even at lower replicates. Thus, replication enhanced confidence but did not fundamentally expand biological findings. Our study delineates key trade-offs between sequencing depth and replication for toxicogenomic experimental design. While additional replicates fundamentally improve reproducibility, gains from depth exhibit diminishing returns. Prioritizing biological replication over depth provides a cost-effective approach to enhance interpretation without sacrificing detection of core gene expression patterns. Altogether, this study provides important insights into the experimental design of toxicogenomics experiments.