Pathway-level information extractor (PLIER): a new tool to quantify pathway level effects in gene expression data

A major challenge in gene expression analysis is to accurately infer relevant biological insights, such as variation in cell-type proportion or pathway activity, from global gene expression studies. We present pathway-level information extractor (PLIER), a broadly applicable solution for this problem that outperforms available cell proportion inference algorithms and can automatically identify specific pathways that regulate gene expression. Our method improves interstudy replicability and reveals biological insights when applied to trans-eQTL (expression quantitative trait loci) identification.

Mao W, Zaslavsky E, Hartmann BM, Sealfon SC, Chikina M. Pathway-level information extractor (PLIER) for gene expression data. Nature Methods; 16, 607–610 (2019)

Weiguang Mao	Maria Chikina, PhD