New Method to Map Tissue-Specific Enhancer-Gene Interactions

A groundbreaking study published in Nature Genetics introduces a new method to map tissue-specific enhancer-gene interactions from multimodal single-cell data, potentially leading to the identification of causal disease alleles. The study, led by Saori Sakaue and a team of researchers, addresses the challenge of translating genome-wide association study (GWAS) loci into causal variants and genes by creating accurate cell-type-specific enhancer-gene maps from disease-relevant tissues. The new nonparametric statistical method, known as SCENT (single-cell enhancer target gene mapping), successfully created 23 cell-type-specific enhancer-gene maps and identified likely causal genes for various diseases, demonstrating the potential of SCENT in uncovering disease mechanisms.