Changes in macrophage transcriptome associate with systemic sclerosis and mediate GSDMA contribution to disease risk

Integration of differential expression (DE) and expression QTL (eQTL) analysis in monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) from systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients and healthy controls reveals (i) changes in macrophage transcriptome as an important contributor in SSc and (ii) cis-regulation in GSDMA as a disease risk in macrophages, but not skin. We carried out RNA-sequencing and genome-wide genotyping in MDMs from 57 SSc patients and 15 controls. Our differential expression and expression QTL (eQTL) analysis in SSc was further integrated with epigenetic, expression and eQTL data from skin, monocytes, neutrophils and lymphocytes.