bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.03.932368; this version posted February 4, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Quantitative trait loci mapped for TCF21 binding, chromatin accessibility and chromosomal looping in coronary artery smooth muscle cells reveal molecular mechanisms of coronary disease loci Quanyi Zhao1, Michael Dacre2, Trieu Nguyen1, Milos Pjanic1, Boxiang Liu1,2, Dharini Iyer1, Paul Cheng1, Robert Wirka1, Juyong Brian Kim1, Hunter B Fraser2, Thomas Quertermous1* 1Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and Cardiovascular Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305; 2Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 *Materials and Correspondence Thomas Quertermous 300 Pasteur Dr. Falk CVRC Stanford, CA 94305
[email protected] Tel: 650-723-5012 Fax: 650-725-2178 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.03.932368; this version posted February 4, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Zhao et al. “Quantitative trait loci mapped for TCF21…” – Page - 2 Abstract Background: To investigate the epigenetic and transcriptional mechanisms of coronary artery disease (CAD) risk, as well as the functional regulation of chromatin structure and function, we have created a catalog of genetic variants associated with three stages of transcriptional cis- regulation in primary human coronary artery vascular smooth muscle cells (HCASMC). Results: To this end, we have used a pooling approach with HCASMC lines to map regulatory variation that mediates binding of the CAD associated transcription factor TCF21 with ChIPseq studies (bQTLs), variation that regulates chromatin accessibility with ATACseq studies (caQTLs), and chromosomal looping with HiC methods (clQTLs).