For Olink® Explore HT and Explore 384/3072, LOD is not reported in customer runs since data below LOD can be informative. Including assays under LOD will not significantly influence the detection of differentially expressed proteins. There is no risk of increasing false positives including data below LOD and filtering out completely non-detected assays prior to statistical analysis has little impact on power (multiple testing correction).
Explore technology is a combination of immunoreaction, PCR and high-throughput sequencing; therefore, it is very challenging to accurately and robustly estimate LOD with currently available methods. We are now offering both raw count data and Negative Controls in our standard output to encourage our customers to explore various background noise removal methods that align with their specific requirements for downstream analysis.