On the excessive use of coefficient of variation as a metric of quantitation quality in proteomics

Abstract

AbstractThe coefficient of variation (CV) is often used in proteomics as a proxy to characterize the performance of a quantitation method and/or the related software. In this note, we question the excessive reliance on this metric in quantitative proteomics that may result in erroneous conclusions. We support this note using a ground‐truth Human‐Yeast‐E. coli dataset demonstrating in a number of cases that erroneous data processing methods may lead to a low CV which has nothing to do with these methods’ performances in quantitation.