DRCTdb: Disease-related cell type analysis to decode cell type effect and underlying regulatory mechanisms

Abstract Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying genetic diseases is challenging due to the involvement of both environmental and genetic factors. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous genetic loci, but their functional implications remain largely unknown. Single-cell multiomics sequencing has emerged as a powerful tool to study disease-specific cell types and their relationship with genetic variants. However, there is a lack of comprehensive databases for exploring genetic disease-related cell types and their mechanisms across different human tissues. In this study, we present the disease-related cell type database (DRCTdb), a database that integrates GWAS data and single-cell multiomics data to identify disease-related cell types and elucidate their regulatory mechanisms. DRCTdb contains well-processed single-cell multiomics data in 16 studies, encompassing transcriptome and epigenetic information overall 4 million cells within 28 tissues. Through DRCTdb, user can easily browse relationships and regulatory mechanisms between SNPs of 42 genetic disease and cell type in different human tissue based on GWAS and single cell multiomics data. Moreover, DRCTdb also provides data download, which allowing users to download well-processed single-cell multiomics data and analysis result from DRCTdb. DRCTdb is available at https://singlecellatlas.top/DRCTDB