Pipeline for the identification of cell type-specific regulatory processes involved in disease.
Cell type-specific functional omics data can now be deconvolved from bulk datasets (Step 1). This can allow to collect transcriptomic and epigenomic data across a larger number of individuals for the discovery of gene regulatory variants. GWAS variants can then be investigated for their functional role on gene expression regulation. This will also help prioritise new causal disease-associated genes (Step 2). Integrative network-based approaches, that build variant and gene relationships, are better suited to study the cumulative effects of disease-associated variants and genes in the dysregulation of sub-networks, or cellular processes (Step 3).