# What thresholds should I use to decide if a gene is really having a significant effect on a cell line?

**URL:** <https://forum.depmap.org/t/what-thresholds-should-i-use-to-decide-if-a-gene-is-really-having-a-significant-effect-on-a-cell-line/165>\
**Category:** Q&A\
**Tags:** genetic-screens\
**Created:** [August 13, 2020, 9:20pm UTC](https://forum.depmap.org/t/what-thresholds-should-i-use-to-decide-if-a-gene-is-really-having-a-significant-effect-on-a-cell-line/165 "2020-08-13T21:20:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Andrew\_Tang](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forum.depmap.org/andrew_tang/32/30_2.png) [@Andrew\_Tang](https://forum.depmap.org/u/Andrew_Tang)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 9:20pm UTC](https://forum.depmap.org/t/what-thresholds-should-i-use-to-decide-if-a-gene-is-really-having-a-significant-effect-on-a-cell-line/165/1 "2020-08-13T21:20:45Z")

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Although it depends on the risk of false positives you’re willing to tolerate, for most applications a cutoff of 0.5 in gene dependency probability or greater makes sense. For gene effect, a score less than -0.5 represents noteworthy depletion in most cell lines.