Many of the fetal brain eQTL we identified map to a common 900-kb inversion polymorphism on chromosome 17q21.31. The eQTL for 13 of the genes in the region are largely tagged by the inversion, which was associated with both increases and decreases in gene expression. Although our analyses of tissue-sharing suggest that none of the eQTL mapping to this region are specific to the fetal brain, only one study to our knowledge has specifically reported any of the gene expression differences we observe [52]. This previous study reported differences between H1 and H2 in the expression of six genes in the adult human brain, which, congruent with our data, included increased expression of LRRC37A in association with the inverted H2 form.
