42Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified thousands of variants associated with 43 disease phenotypes. However, the majority of these variants do not alter coding sequences, making 44 it difficult to assign their function. To this end, we present a multi-omic epigenetic atlas of the 45 adult human brain through profiling of the chromatin accessibility landscapes and three-46 dimensional chromatin interactions of seven brain regions across a cohort of 39 cognitively healthy 47 individuals. Single-cell chromatin accessibility profiling of 70,631 cells from six of these brain 48 regions identifies 24 distinct cell clusters and 359,022 cell type-specific regulatory elements, 49 capturing the regulatory diversity of the adult brain. We develop a machine learning classifier to 50 integrate this multi-omic framework and predict dozens of functional single nucleotide 51 polymorphisms (SNPs), nominating gene and cellular targets for previously orphaned GWAS loci.
52These predictions both inform well-studied disease-relevant genes, such as BIN1 in microglia for 53 Alzheimer's disease (AD) and reveal novel gene-disease associations, such as STAB1 in microglia 54 and MAL in oligodendrocytes for Parkinson's disease (PD). Moreover, we dissect the complex 55 inverted haplotype of the MAPT (encoding tau) PD risk locus, identifying ectopic enhancer-gene 56 contacts in neurons that increase MAPT expression and may mediate this disease association. This 57 work greatly expands our understanding of inherited variation in AD and PD and provides a 58 roadmap for the epigenomic dissection of noncoding regulatory variation in disease. 59 60 61 62Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) affect ~50 and ~10 million individuals 63 world-wide, as two of the most common neurodegenerative disorders. Several large consortia have 64 assembled genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that associate genetic variants with clinical 65 diagnoses of probable AD dementia 1-4 or probable PD 5-7 , or with their characteristic pathologic 66 features. These efforts have led to the identification of dozens of potential risk loci for these 67 prevalent neurodegenerative diseases. One goal of these studies was to build more precise 68 molecular biomarkers of AD or PD, efforts that are beginning to yield encouraging results with 69 polygenic risk scores 8 . The other major goal was to gain deeper insight into the molecular 70 pathogenesis of disease and thereby inform novel therapeutic targets. Some of the risk loci contain 71 coding variants and so have credibility as putative disease mediators. However, most risk loci are 72 in noncoding regions and so it remains unclear if the nominated (often nearest) gene is the 73 functional disease-relevant gene, or if some other gene is involved 9 . Furthermore, even if the 74 nominated gene is a true positive, the noncoding risk locus might regulate additional genes. These 75 challenges remain a fundamental gap in interpreting the etiology of neurodegenerative diseases 76 and d...