Single-nucleus chromatin accessibility profiling identifies cell types and functional variants contributing to major depression

We performed high-throughput snATAC-seq using the 10X Genomics Chromium platform on archived post-mortem dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA9) tissue in MDD subjects who died by suicide and neurotypical control subjects to identify cell-type specific differentially accessible chromatin regions. We further combined snATAC-seq with previously generated snRNA-seq data from the same subjects to generate high-resolution multi-modal accessibility and expression atlas of cortical cells. This identified accessible chromatin regions potentially regulating expression of genes. Further, MDD-associated genetic risk variants were examined for their allele-specific effects on chromatin accessibility and transcription factors binding sites in cell type speciifc manner, elucdiating target risk genes and pathways associated with MDD.