Profiling chromatin states using single-cell itChIP-seq

Nat Cell Biol. 2019 Sep;21(9):1164-1172. doi: 10.1038/s41556-019-0383-5. Epub 2019 Sep 3.

Abstract

Single-cell measurement of chromatin states, including histone modifications and non-histone protein binding, remains challenging. Here, we present a low-cost, efficient, simultaneous indexing and tagmentation-based ChIP-seq (itChIP-seq) method, compatible with both low cellular input and single cells for profiling chromatin states. itChIP combines chromatin opening, simultaneous cellular indexing and chromatin tagmentation within a single tube, enabling the processing of samples from tens of single cells to, more commonly, thousands of single cells per assay. We demonstrate that single-cell itChIP-seq (sc-itChIP-seq) yields ~9,000 unique reads per cell. Using sc-itChIP-seq to profile H3K27ac, we sufficiently capture the earliest epigenetic priming event during the cell fate transition from naive to primed pluripotency, and reveal the basis for cell-type specific enhancer usage during the differentiation of bipotent cardiac progenitor cells into endothelial cells and cardiomyocytes. Our results demonstrate that itChIP is a widely applicable technology for single-cell chromatin profiling of epigenetically heterogeneous cell populations in many biological processes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Binding Sites
  • Chromatin / metabolism*
  • Chromatin Immunoprecipitation / methods
  • Endothelial Cells / metabolism*
  • Epigenomics / methods
  • Histones / metabolism
  • Mice, Transgenic
  • Protein Processing, Post-Translational / genetics*
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA* / methods

Substances

  • Chromatin
  • Histones