Disease susceptibility may be increased by accumulation of genetic variants in chromatin loops from disease-relevant cell-types
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified more than 50,000 SNP-trait associations. Most of these SNPs or genetic variants map to noncoding regions, known as or gene desserts. This makes it challenging to describe the mechanism by which the variant confers susceptibility to the trait. Increasingly, there is an interest in characterization and interpretation of the effect of non-coding