Enhancer-promoter interaction maps in pig implantation tissue identify candidate cis-regulatory elements and regulatory variants.
Due to the polygenic nature of pig reproductive traits, most variants accounting for the phenotypic variation remain poorly characterized. It is well established that trait-associated variants are often enriched in regulatory elements of relevant tissues, and coordinated endometrial-conceptus crosstalk is critical for implantation success. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate the chromatin landscape in pig endometrium-conceptus tissues and identify regulatory variants associated with reproductive traits. Combining RNA-seq and ChIP-seq, we uncovered cis-regulatory elements whose histone modification patterns correlate with gene expression. H3K27ac-based chromatin interaction profiling further resolved 2137 cis-regulatory elements involved in enhancer-promoter (E-P) interactions. Subsequent analyses identified candidate variants within these regulatory regions that associate with reproductive traits, in which the enhancer SNP rs346038249 likely affects transcriptional activity through allele-dependent transcription factor binding. Collectively, our findings provide mechanistic insights into pig embryo implantation and nominate candidate regulatory variants that merit further functional validation for their potential role in pig genetic improvement.