Single-cell chromatin landscapes of human islets in normoglycemia, prediabetes and type 2 diabetes

In this study, we used single cell nucleus ATAC-seq (snATAC-seq) to profile 218,973 islet cells from 34 individuals, including islets from non-diabetic, pre-diabetic and type 2 diectic (T2D) donors. We characterize changes in regulatory programs of islet cell types in T2D progression, describe the relationship of these programs to genetic risk for T2D, and use allelic imbalance mapping to define cell type-specific functions for candidate T2D causal variants. Overall design: characterization of gene regulatory programs in individual islet cell types under both homeostatic and diabetic conditions.