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Author

J. Zeitlinger

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Open access Sep 2026

AlphaGenome Atlas: in silico mutagenesis of the entire human genome improves prioritization and interpretation of non-coding variants

A major challenge in genomics is deciphering the functional consequences of non-coding genetic variation. Here we present AlphaGenome Atlas, a comprehensive resource that enables the joint interpretation and prioritization of variant effects across the entire human genome. Using AlphaGenome, we predicted the regulatory effects across thousands of molecular phenotypes for every possible human single nucleotide variant and many observed indels. These predictions were then used to derive a unified and interpretable AlphaGenome Variant Impact (AVI) score and to map cis-regulatory motifs across the genome. AVI achieved state-of-the-art performance across diverse benchmarks with improved prioritization of deleterious non-coding variants. Application of the combined Atlas resource helped solve an epileptic encephalopathy rare disease case, increased the statistical power to detect rare non-coding variants driving population-level phenotypes, and enhanced the mechanistic interpretation of these variants. Thus, AlphaGenome Atlas improves the prioritization and molecular interpretation of non-coding variants with genetic and clinical significance.

J. Cheng, K. R. Taylor, L. Nicolaisen et al. · 0 citations
Open access Aug 2026

Cooperativity enables widespread role of low-affinity motifs in chromatin accessibility and increases regulatory potential.

Low-affinity transcription-factor (TF) motifs are an important element of the cis-regulatory code, yet they are notoriously difficult to map and mechanistically incompletely understood, limiting our ability to interpret non-coding variation in development, evolution, and disease. Here, we investigate their role in pioneering and leverage sequence-to-profile models of chromatin accessibility in mouse embryonic stem cells to reliably map and interpret low-affinity motifs across the genome. We find that low-affinity motifs have outsized effects by cooperating with nearby motifs through intra-nucleosomal soft syntax. By modeling nucleosome-mediated cooperativity with a kinetic model, we discover and validate that pioneer cooperativity makes a motif operate at higher pioneering ranges across changing TF concentrations, thereby raising the regulatory potential. These results show that low-affinity motifs can be accurately mapped, shape the properties of developmental enhancers, and likely play a widespread role in fine-tuning enhancers during evolution.

M. Weilert, Kaelan J. Brennan, Khyati Dalal et al. · 0 citations

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