title: HiView: an integrative genome browser to leverage Hi-C results for the interpretation of GWAS variants.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified thousands of genetic variants associated with complex traits and diseases. However, most of them are located in the non-protein coding regions, and therefore it is challenging to hypothesize the functions of these non-coding GWAS variants. Recent large efforts such as the ENCODE and Roadmap Epigenomics projects have predicted a large number of regulatory elements. However, the target genes of these regulatory elements remain largely unknown. Chromatin conformation capture based technologies such as Hi-C can directly measure the chromatin interactions and have generated an increasingly comprehensive catalog of the interactome between the distal regulatory elements and their potential target genes. Leveraging such information revealed by Hi-C holds the promise of elucidating the functions of genetic variants in human diseases.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this work, we present HiView, the first integrative genome browser to leverage Hi-C results for the interpretation of GWAS variants. HiView is able to display Hi-C data and statistical evidence for chromatin interactions in genomic regions surrounding any given GWAS variant, enabling straightforward visualization and interpretation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We believe that as the first GWAS variants-centered Hi-C genome browser, HiView is a useful tool guiding post-GWAS functional genomics studies. HiView is freely accessible at: http://www.unc.edu/~yunmli/HiView .
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.|Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.|Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.|Curriculum in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
authors.forename: Guosheng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.affiliation: Curriculum in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
authors.forename: Shengjie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chai
authors.affiliation: School of Statistics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China.
authors.forename: Baqun
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: College of Veterinary Medicine, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, 210095, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Cong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA.
authors.forename: Fulai
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Institute for Personalized Medicine, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, 17033, USA.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yue
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. yunli@med.unc.edu.|Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. yunli@med.unc.edu.|Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. yunli@med.unc.edu.
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Division of Biostatistics, Department of Population Health, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, 10016, USA. ming.hu@nyumc.org.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hu
mesh_terms: D015894:Genome, Human; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics*; D012984:Software
keywords: GWAS variants; Hi-C data; Integrative genome browser