Genetics of human autoimmunity: From genetic information to functional insights

Genome-wide association studies have identified hundreds of risk variants associated with human autoimmune diseases. Recent evidence suggests that a substantial portion of them affect gene expression in specific cell types. To obtain the functional insights of GWAS findings, comprehensive characterization of genetic variants in human genome is a key task. In parallel with GWAS, many researches in functional genomics have been conducted in the past decade, and our understandings of cell type-specific gene regulatory system have been substantially improved. In this review, we will introduce the main research topics in functional genomics, and explain their utility to understand biological mechanisms of autoimmune diseases.