Figure 1. The distribution of gene expression variability highlights the regulatory control that different genes in the pathway are subjected to.

(A) Absolute gene expression is a proxy for how genes are transcriptionally regulated between samples. Studying the consistency of how genes are expressed can also add information on pathway control e.g., lower levels of inter-individual variability may reflect increased regulatory control. (B) By considering the distribution of gene expression variability, we may be able to understand transcriptional regulation in a more comprehensive manner—this is the premise of the pathVar method.