PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Chenfu Shi AU - Helen Ray-Jones AU - James Ding AU - Kate Duffus AU - Yao Fu AU - Vasanthi Priyadarshini Gaddi AU - Oliver Gough AU - Jenny Hankinson AU - Paul Martin AU - Amanda McGovern AU - Annie Yarwood AU - Patrick Gaffney AU - Steve Eyre AU - Magnus Rattray AU - Richard B Warren AU - Gisela Orozco TI - An active chromatin interactome in relevant cell lines elucidates biological mechanisms at genetic risk loci for dermatological traits AID - 10.1101/2020.03.05.973271 DP - 2020 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 2020.03.05.973271 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/12/2020.03.05.973271.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/12/2020.03.05.973271.full AB - Chromatin looping between regulatory elements and gene promoters presents a potential mechanism whereby disease risk variants affect their target genes. Here we use H3K27ac HiChIP, a method for assaying the active chromatin interactome in two cell lines: keratinocytes and skin derived CD8+ T cells. We integrate public datasets for a lymphoblastoid cell line and primary CD4+ T cells and identify gene targets at risk loci for skin-related disorders. Interacting genes enrich for pathways of known importance in each trait, such as cytokine response (psoriatic arthritis, psoriasis) and replicative senescence (melanoma). We show examples of how our analysis can inform changes in the current understanding of multiple psoriasis associated risk loci. For example, the variant rs10794648, which is generally assigned to IFNLR1, was linked to GRHL3 in our dataset, a gene essential in skin repair and development. Our findings, therefore, indicate a renewed importance of skin related factors in the risk of disease.Graphical AbstractIn this article we take disease associated variants from 5 dermatological conditions and use cell type specific datasets to map genes that could be affected by these variants, providing insight into disease mechanisms.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.