Disease associated biological functions such as “Cellular response to TGFβ stimulus”, “αβ T cell activation”, “Inflammatory response” were found significantly enriched in cluster 4 peaks in T cells (P value ~ 10−5, Supplementary Fig. 9a, b), suggesting that the chromatin states of the dermal T cells of SSc patients retain inherent abnormalities whether they are in the lesion or not. Here, TGFB1 is linked to systemic sclerosis.