Cited by 395Genomics and Chromatin DynamicsGenetic Associations and EpidemiologyChromatin Remodeling and Cancer

Global reference mapping of human transcription factor footprints

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Vierstra, Jeff, Lazar, John, Sandstrom, Richard, Halow, Jessica, Lee, Kristen, Bates, Daniel, Diegel, Morgan, Dunn, Douglas +11 more·2020·Nature

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Abstract

Abstract Combinatorial binding of transcription factors to regulatory DNA underpins gene regulation in all organisms. Genetic variation in regulatory regions has been connected with diseases and diverse phenotypic traits 1 , yet it remains challenging to distinguish variants that impact regulatory function 2 . Genomic DNase I footprinting enables quantitative, nucleotide-resolution delineation of sites of transcription factor occupancy within native chromatin 3–5 . However, to date only a small fraction of such sites have been precisely resolved on the human genome sequence 5 . To enable comprehensive mapping of transcription factor footprints, we produced high-density DNase I cleavage maps from 243 human cell and tissue types and states and integrated these data to delineate at nucleotide resolution ~4.5 million compact genomic elements encoding transcription factor occupancy. We map the fine-scale structure of ~1.6 million DHS and show that the overwhelming majority is populated by well-spaced sites of single transcription factor:DNA interaction. Cell context-dependent cis-regulation is chiefly executed by wholesale actuation of accessibility at regulatory DNA versus by differential transcription factor occupancy within accessible elements. We show further that the well-described enrichment of disease- and phenotypic trait-associated genetic variants in regulatory regions 1,6 is almost entirely attributable to variants localizing within footprints, and that functional variants impacting transcription factor occupancy are nearly evenly partitioned between loss- and gain-of-function alleles. Unexpectedly, we find that the global density of human genetic variation is markedly increased within transcription factor footprints, revealing an unappreciated driver of cis-regulatory evolution. Our results provide a new framework for both global and nucleotide-precision analyses of gene regulatory mechanisms and functional genetic variation.

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  • In some cases, activity of enhancers with Gfi1 sites was correlated with expression of Gfi1b, with weak evidence for stronger correlations with other factors from the same motif family.

    “In some cases, we found statistically weak evidence for stronger correlations with other factors from the same motif family,45 e.g., the activity of enhancers with Gfi1 sites was correlated with the expression of Gfi1b (Figure S3C).”

    From Design principles of cell-state-specific enhancers in hematopoiesis (2025) · cites this paper as [45]

    The ‘Assigning TFs to footprints’ and ‘Cell-selective TF occupancy landscapes’ sections (page not available) say that closely related transcription factors can share recognition sequences, supporting the same-motif-family premise. They do not report enhancer-activity correlations with factor expression or evidence that those correlations are stronger for other family members. The Gfi1/Gfi1b example is presented as the citing authors’ own finding, with a citation to their Figure S3C. (LLM, conf=0.76)

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Authors
Vierstra, J., Lazar, J., Sandstrom, R., Halow, J., Lee, K., Bates, D., Diegel, M., Dunn, D., Neri, F., Haugen, E., Rynes, E., Reynolds, A., Nelson, J., Johnson, A., Frerker, M., Buckley, M., Kaul, R., Meuleman, W., & Stamatoyannopoulos, J. A.
Affiliations
  • Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences (US)
  • University of Washington (US)
Corresponding author
  • Vierstra, Jeff
  • Stamatoyannopoulos, John A.
Venue
Nature
Published
2020-07-29
Volume
583
Issue
7818
Pages
729-736
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W3046196569
Cited by
386
References
62
Citations by year
2026: 48 · 2025: 84 · 2024: 75 · 2023: 58 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 67 · 2020: 15
FWCI
15.15
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • GlaxoSmithKline
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Human Genome Research Institute (U54HG007010, UM1HG009444, R35HG011317)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Chromatin Remodeling and Cancer
Keywords
transcription factor footprints, DNase I footprinting, DNase I hypersensitive sites, transcription factor occupancy, chromatin accessibility, cis-regulatory evolution, loss-of-function alleles, gain-of-function alleles, gene expression regulation, functional genetic variation
MeSH terms
Deoxyribonuclease I, DNA, Genetics, Population, Humans, Models, Molecular, Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid, Transcription Factors, Genome, Human, Consensus Sequence, DNA Footprinting, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Genome-Wide Association Study

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