Integrative analysis of haplotype-resolved epigenomes across human tissues

Allelic differences between the two homologous chromosomes can affect the propensity of inheritance in humans; however, the extent of such differences in the human genome has yet to be fully explored. Here, for the first time, we delineate allelic chromatin modifications and transcriptomes amongst a broad set of human tissues, enabled by a chromosome-spanning haplotype reconstruction strategy(1). The resulting masses of haplotype-resolved epigenomic maps reveal extensive allelic biases in both chromatin state and transcription, which show considerable variation across tissues and between individuals, and allow us to investigate cis-regulatory relationships between genes and their control sequences. Analyses of histone modification maps also uncover intriguing characteristics of cis-regulatory elements and tissue-restricted activities of repetitive elements. The rich datasets described here will enhance our understanding of the mechanisms of how cis-regulatory elements control gene expression programs.