David Functional Annotation [extra: Quality]

This is the most critical step users mess up. You must tell DAVID what the "universe" is. Are you looking at the whole human genome? Or just the 10,000 genes expressed in your specific tissue? Use the whole genome for standard enrichment, but use a tissue-specific background for precision.

Your brain cannot synthesize that noise. DAVID can. david functional annotation

This is where the magic happens. The Three Outputs You Must Understand When the results appear, you will see a wall of data. Ignore the noise and focus on these three things: This is the most critical step users mess up

DAVID doesn't just count genes. It uses a modified Fisher Exact p-value (EASE score). Look for terms with a p-value < 0.05 after Benjamini correction (FDR). The lower the p-value, the stronger the signal. Or just the 10,000 genes expressed in your specific tissue

For 80% of biologists who need to answer, "What is my gene list doing?" DAVID is the best tool ever made. Use it, cite it, and never present a raw gene list to your PI again.