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Global reference mapping of human transcription factor footprints
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
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, 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]
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MethodSpeed–Specificity Trade-Offs in the Transcription Factors Search for Their Genomic Binding Sites
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“Such indirect cooperationmay explain the increased tendency of some motifs to co-occur in the same promoters [114], the localization of multiple TFs to the same enhancer regions [115–118], and the prevalence of multiple, single-TF footprints within DNase-hypersensitive regions [18].”
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“For this reason, we refer to TFs using their ENCODE-defined “archetypes,” which reflects the group of TFs that share the same motif (Vierstra et al. 2020).”
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“Additionally, all TFs were assigned to a family on the basis of their arche-motif 21 .”
Single-cell chromatin accessibility reveals malignant regulatory programs in primary human cancers
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BackgroundResultInfluentialRegulatory transposable elements in the encyclopedia of DNA elements
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“Enriched motifs were grouped according to motif archetypes 47 .”
Background“Stripe” transcription factors provide accessibility to co-binding partners in mammalian genomes
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The correlation between CpG methylation and gene expression is driven by sequence variants
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“DNA regulatory sequences, for example, promoters and enhancers, are frequently bound by transcription factors (TFs) 5,6 and depleted of CpG methylation 7,8 .”
Multiscale footprints reveal the organization of cis-regulatory elements
Yan, H., Horlbeck, M. A., Zhang, R., Ma, S., Shrestha, R., Kartha, V. K., Duarte, F. M., Hock, C., Savage, R. E., Labade, A. S., et al. (2025) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08443-4 · Cited by 93
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Single-nucleotide-level mapping of DNA regulatory elements that control fetal hemoglobin expression
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“Enhancers are one of the most abundant CREs responsible for enhancing transcription and regulating the spatial and temporal expression of genes in a tissue-specific manner [14].”
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“This analysis finds the following two such processes: transcription by polymerase III (Pol III) increases mutation rate by an order of magnitude and binding of transcription factor (TF) in testis increases T > G rate (~1.6-fold).”
BackgroundInfluentialXiao, F., Zhang, X., Morton, S. U., Kim, S. W., Fan, Y., Gorham, J., Zhang, H., Berkson, P., Mazumdar, N., Cao, Y., et al. (2024) · Nature Genetics · doi:10.1038/s41588-024-01669-y · Cited by 62
“Enriched motifs were identified using Homer (v.4.11.1) 38 and a previously described nonredundant motif database 50 .”
InfluentialThe origin of human mutation in light of genomic data
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Mechanisms underlying divergent responses of genetically distinct macrophages to IL-4
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EWS-FLI1 regulates and cooperates with core regulatory circuitry in Ewing sarcoma
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“The spacing of TF binding sites can provide insights into the regulatory organization and cooperativity between TFs (38).”
BackgroundDenisovan introgression has shaped the immune system of present-day Papuans
Vespasiani, D. M., Jacobs, G. S., Cook, L. E., Brucato, N., Leavesley, M., Kinipi, C., Ricaut, F.-X., Cox, M. P., & Gallego Romero, I. (2022) · PLOS Genetics · doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1010470 · Cited by 46
“[31], which clusters HOCOCOMO and Jaspar PWMs into 286 distinct clusters on the basis of sequence similarity, and considered only those a/naSNPs that disrupted PWMs included in these clusters (n = 3,028 Denisovan, 2,457 Neanderthal and 21,104 modern human variants).”
Delàs, M. J., Kalaitzis, C. M., Fawzi, T., Demuth, M., Zhang, I., Stuart, H. T., Costantini, E., Ivanovitch, K., Tanaka, E. M., & Briscoe, J. (2022) · Developmental Cell · doi:10.1016/j.devcel.2022.11.016 · Cited by 42
“We used TOBIAS(33) with motifs from three databases, grouping motifs into published archetypes based on position weight matrix clustering of motifs.(37) The analysis revealed homeodomain (HD) and PAXmotifs among those most differentially scoring between pMN, p2, and p0-1 at day 5 and day 6 (Figure 3D).”
MethodLongitudinal immune dynamics of mild COVID-19 define signatures of recovery and persistencePreprint
Talla, A., Vasaikar, S. V., Lemos, M. P., Moodie, Z., Pebworth, M.-P., Henderson, K. E., Cohen, K. W., Czartoski, J., Lai, L., Suthar, M. S., et al. (2021) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2021.05.26.442666 · Cited by 46
“, 2009), ENCODE reference accessible regions (ENCODE file ID ENCFF503GCK; (Vierstra et al., 2020)), and TSS regions (TSS ±2kb from Ensembl v93; (Yates et al.”
BackgroundSMARCE1 deficiency generates a targetable mSWI/SNF dependency in clear cell meningioma
Pierre, R. S., Collings, C. K., Guerra, D. D. S., Widmer, C. J., Bolonduro, O., Mashtalir, N., Sankar, A., Liang, Y., Bi, W. L., Gerkes, E. H., et al. (2022) · Nature Genetics · doi:10.1038/s41588-022-01077-0 · Cited by 45
Extrusion fountains are hallmarks of chromosome organization emerging upon zygotic genome activation
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“…the site of facilitated cohesin loading as a 1-Kb region (one simulation monomer), consistent with recent characterizations of regulatory elements 49 and the average length of ATAC-seq peaks at fountain bases (606 bp) 41 , which corresponds to the narrow (~10 Kb) bases of the fountains we…”
Parallel functional testing identifies enhancers active in early postnatal mouse brain
Lambert, J. T., Su-Feher, L., Cichewicz, K., Warren, T. L., Zdilar, I., Wang, Y., Lim, K. J., Haigh, J., Morse, S. J., Canales, C. P., et al. (2021) · eLife · doi:10.7554/elife.69479 · Cited by 39
A GO catalogue of human DNA-binding transcription factors
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Single-molecule states link transcription factor binding to gene expression
Doughty, B. R., Hinks, M. M., Schaepe, J. M., Marinov, G. K., Thurm, A. R., Rios-Martinez, C., Parks, B. E., Tan, Y., Marklund, E., Dubocanin, D., et al. (2024) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08219-w · Cited by 42
Cao, Y., Zhang, X., Akerberg, B. N., Yuan, H., Sakamoto, T., Xiao, F., VanDusen, N. J., Zhou, P., Sweat, M., Wang, Y., et al. (2023) · Circulation · doi:10.1161/circulationaha.122.061955 · Cited by 41
Evolving cell states and oncogenic drivers during the progression of IDH-mutant gliomas
Wu, J., Castro, L. N. G., Battaglia, S., Farran, C. A. E., D’Antonio, J. P., Miller, T. E., Suvà, M. L., & Bernstein, B. (2024) · Nature Cancer · doi:10.1038/s43018-024-00865-3 · Cited by 48
“Motifs with similar sequences were collapsed into one motif through motif clustering 65 .”
Functional dissection of complex trait variants at single-nucleotide resolution
Siraj, L., Castro, R. I., Dewey, H. B., Kales, S., Butts, J. C., Nguyen, T. T. L., Kanai, M., Berenzy, D., Mouri, K., Wang, Q. S., et al. (2026) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10121-6 · Cited by 56
Self-citationAssigning function to SNPs: Considerations when interpreting genetic variation
Fadason, T., Farrow, S. L., Gokuladhas, S., Golovina, E., Nyaga, D. M., O'Sullivan, J. M., & Schierding, W. S. (2021) · Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology · doi:10.1016/j.semcdb.2021.08.008 · Cited by 44
Constructing gene regulatory networks using epigenetic data
Sonawane, A. R., DeMeo, D. L., Quackenbush, J. F., & Glass, K. (2021) · npj Systems Biology and Applications · doi:10.1038/s41540-021-00208-3 · Cited by 45
Wünnemann, F., Tadjo, T. F., Beaudoin, M., Lalonde, S., Lo, K. S., Kleinstiver, B. P., & Lettre, G. (2023) · PLoS Genetics · doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1010680 · Cited by 40
Deep learning the cis-regulatory code of chromatin dynamics during cellular reprogrammingPreprint
Nair, S., Ameen, M., Sundaram, L., Pampari, A., Schreiber, J. M., Balsubramani, A., Wang, Y. X., Burns, D., Blau, H. M., Karakikes, I., et al. (2023) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2023.10.04.560808 · Cited by 38
Epigenetic regulatory layers in the 3D nucleus
Willemin, A., Szabó, D., & Pombo, A. (2024) · Molecular Cell · doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2023.12.032 · Cited by 37
QTLbase2: an enhanced catalog of human quantitative trait loci on extensive molecular phenotypes
Huang, D., Feng, X., Yang, H., Wang, J., Zhang, W., Fan, X., Dong, X., Chen, K., Yu, Y., Ma, X., et al. (2022) · Nucleic Acids Research · doi:10.1093/nar/gkac1020 · Cited by 37
“This intronic variant demonstrates significant allelic imbalance of open chromatin in CD14+ monocytes (32) and obtains a high genome-scale pathogenicity prediction score [e.”
BackgroundDe novo human brain enhancers created by single-nucleotide mutations
Li, S., Hannenhalli, S. S., & Ovcharenko, I. (2023) · Science Advances · doi:10.1126/sciadv.add2911 · Cited by 33
The single-molecule accessibility landscape of newly replicated mammalian chromatin
Ostrowski, M. S., Yang, M. G., McNally, C. P., Abdulhay, N. J., Wang, S., Renduchintala, K., Irkliyenko, I., Biran, A., Chew, B. T. L., Midha, A. D., et al. (2024) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2024.10.039 · Cited by 35
Kaplow, I. M., Schäffer, D. E., Wirthlin, M. E., Lawler, A. J., Brown, A. R., Kleyman, M., & Pfenning, A. R. (2022) · BMC Genomics · doi:10.1186/s12864-022-08450-7 · Cited by 37
Wang, Y. X., Palla, A. R., Ho, A. T. V., Robinson, D. C. L., Ravichandran, M., Markov, G. J., Mai, T., Still, C., Balsubramani, A., Nair, S., et al. (2025) · Cell stem cell · doi:10.1016/j.stem.2025.05.012 · Cited by 39
Structural insights into the interaction between transcription factors and the nucleosome
Morgunova, E. Y., & Taipale, J. (2021) · Current Opinion in Structural Biology · doi:10.1016/j.sbi.2021.06.016 · Cited by 32
Tagmentation-based single-cell genomicsPreprint
Adey, A. (2021) · Genome Research · doi:10.1101/gr.275223.121 · Cited by 33
“…sensitivity afforded by DNase-seq and the ability to accurately map the footprints of transcription factors within these regions of open chromatin (Vierstra et al. 2020), the method is generally regarded as difficult and requires a large amount of startingmaterial, although single-cell variants…”
Epigenomic insights into common human disease pathology
Bell, C. G. (2024) · Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences · doi:10.1007/s00018-024-05206-2 · Cited by 36
“Analysis of active open chromatin across multiple tissues via DHSs has revealed that TFs occupy regions of DNA that are hypermutable and that CpG dinucleotides are strong drivers of this focused genetic diversity [177].”
BackgroundPioneer factors in development and cancer
Sunkel, B. D., & Stanton, B. Z. (2021) · iScience · doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.103132 · Cited by 32
An integrated transcription factor framework for Treg identity and diversity
Chowdhary, K., Léon, J., Ramanan, D., Mathis, D., & Benoist, C. O. (2024) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2411301121 · Cited by 31
“We examined the relative accessibility per cell of OCRs that contain known TF motifs, grouped into “archetypes” ( 35 ) to reduce redundancy ( Fig.”
Comparative chromatin accessibility upon BDNF stimulation delineates neuronal regulatory elements
Ibarra, I. L., Ratnu, V. S., Gordillo, L., Hwang, I., Mariani, L., Weinand, K., Hammarén, H. M., Heck, J., Bulyk, M. L., Savitski, M. M., et al. (2022) · Molecular Systems Biology · doi:10.15252/msb.202110473 · Cited by 33
“The relationship between chromatin accessibility and genomic regions associated with complex traits can provide a deeper understanding for diseases in the context of genetic variation at non-coding regulatory regions (Maurano et al , 2012) that could affect TF occupancy (Vierstra et al , 2020).”
Design principles of cell-state-specific enhancers in hematopoiesis
Frömel, R., Rühle, J., Bernal Martinez, A., Szu-Tu, C., Pacheco Pastor, F., Martinez-Corral, R., & Velten, L. (2025) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2025.04.017 · Cited by 29
“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).”
Yousefi, S., Deng, R., Lanko, K., Salsench, E. M., Nikoncuk, A., van der Linde, H. C., Perenthaler, E., van Ham, T. J., Mulugeta, E., & Barakat, T. S. (2021) · Genome Medicine · doi:10.1186/s13073-021-00980-1 · Cited by 25
Causal role of immune cells in generalized anxiety disorder: Mendelian randomization study
Ma, Z., Zhao, M., Zhao, H., & Qu, N. (2024) · Frontiers in Immunology · doi:10.3389/fimmu.2023.1338083 · Cited by 31
Current and Future Perspectives of Noncoding RNAs in Brain Function and Neuropsychiatric Disease
Kyzar, E. J., Bohnsack, J. P., & Pandey, S. C. (2021) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.08.013 · Cited by 27
Metadata
- 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.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2020-07-29
- Volume
- 583
- Issue
- 7818
- Pages
- 729-736
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC7410829
- 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
- hybrid
- doi.org
- 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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