Allelic imbalance of chromatin accessibility in cancer identifies candidate causal risk variants and their mechanisms

While many germline cancer risk variants have been identified through genome-wide association studies (GWAS), the mechanisms by which these variants operate remain largely unknown. Here we used 406 cancer ATAC-Seq samples across 23 cancer types to identify 7,262 germline allele-specific accessibility QTLs (as-aQTLs). Cancer as-aQTLs had stronger enrichment for cancer risk heritability (up to 145 fold) than any other functional annotation across seven cancer GWAS. Most cancer as-aQTLs directly altered transcription factor (TF) motifs and exhibited differential TF binding and gene expression in functional screens. To connect as-aQTLs to putative risk mechanisms, we introduced the regulome-wide associations study (RWAS). RWAS identified genetically associated accessible peaks at >70% of known breast and prostate loci and discovered new risk loci in all examined cancer types. Integrating as-aQTL discovery, motif analysis and RWAS identified candidate causal regulatory elements and their probable upstream regulators. Our work establishes cancer as-aQTLs and RWAS analysis as powerful tools to study the genetic architecture of cancer risk.