for identifying changes in expression profiles upon exposure to ethanol and other drugs of addiction. Gene expression profiles of LCLs are most like the B-cells from which they were derived (Min et al., 2010). They can provide insights into immune response mechanisms that play an important role in alcoholism and its effects on the brain (Crews et al., 2011; Mayfield et al., 2013; McClintick et al., 2013). A recent study has shown substantial overlap in expression between blood and many tissues, including many regions of the brain (Sullivan et al., 2006, Wright et al., 2014), suggesting they also provide a window on many otherwise inaccessible processes. LCLs have been used in the study of other complex diseases, including autism. Nishimura et al. (Nishimura et al., 2007) used expression profiling of LCLs from patients affected with autism and compared to controls to find different sets of dysregulated genes for two different subtypes of autism.
