  A methodology is proposed to automatically detect significant symbol
associations in genomic databases. A new statistical test is proposed to assess
the significance of a group of symbols when found in several genesets of a
given database. Applied to symbol pairs, the thresholded p-values of the test
define a graph structure on the set of symbols. The cliques of that graph are
significant symbol associations, linked to a set of genesets where they can be
found. The method can be applied to any database, and is illustrated MSigDB C2
database. Many of the symbol associations detected in C2 or in non-specific
selections did correspond to already known interactions. On more specific
selections of C2, many previously unkown symbol associations have been
detected. These associations unveal new candidates for gene or protein
interactions, needing further investigation for biological evidence.
