Population-specific expression analysis (PSEA) reveals molecular changes in diseased brain.

Human diseases are often accompanied by histological changes that confound interpretation of molecular analyses and identification of disease-related effects. We developed population-specific expression analysis (PSEA), a computational method of analyzing gene expression in samples of varying composition that can improve analyses of quantitative molecular data in many biological contexts. PSEA of brains from individuals with Huntington's disease revealed myelin-related abnormalities that were undetected using standard differential expression analysis.