Epigenomic partitioning of a polygenic risk score for asthma reveals distinct genetically driven disease pathways.

Background: Individual differences in susceptibility to developing asthma, a heterogeneous chronic inflammatory lung disease, are poorly understood. Whether genetics can predict asthma risk and how genetic variants modulate the complex pathophysiology of asthma are still debated.

Aim: To build polygenic risk scores for asthma risk prediction and epigenomically link predictive genetic variants to pathophysiological mechanisms.

3D chromatin reprogramming primes human memory T2 cells for rapid recall and pathogenic dysfunction.

Memory T cells provide long-lasting defense responses through their ability to rapidly reactivate, but how they efficiently "recall" an inflammatory transcriptional program remains unclear. Here, we show that human CD4 memory T helper 2 (T2) cells carry a chromatin landscape synergistically reprogrammed at both one-dimensional (1D) and 3D levels to accommodate recall responses, which is absent in naive T cells. In memory T2 cells, recall genes were epigenetically primed through the maintenance of transcription-permissive chromatin at distal (super)enhancers organized in long-range 3D chromatin hubs.

Decoding the genetic and epigenetic basis of asthma.

Asthma is a complex and heterogeneous chronic inflammatory disease of the airways. Alongside environmental factors, asthma susceptibility is strongly influenced by genetics. Given its high prevalence and our incomplete understanding of the mechanisms underlying disease susceptibility, asthma is frequently studied in genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which have identified thousands of genetic variants associated with asthma development.

Severe COVID-19-associated variants linked to chemokine receptor gene control in monocytes and macrophages.

Genome-wide association studies have identified 3p21.31 as the main risk locus for severe COVID-19, although underlying mechanisms remain elusive. We perform an epigenomic dissection of 3p21.

Severe COVID-19 associated variants linked to chemokine receptor gene control in monocytes and macrophages.

Genome-wide association studies have identified 3p21.31 as the main risk locus for severe disease in COVID-19 patients, although underlying biological mechanisms remain elusive. We performed a comprehensive epigenomic dissection of the 3p21.