Abstract

In many eukaryotic organisms, such as humans, the genome is tightly packed and organized with the help of nucleosomes (chromatin). A nucleosome is a complex formed by eight histone proteins that is wrapped with ~147bp of DNA. When the DNA is being actively transcribed into RNA, the DNA will be opened and loosened from the nucleosome complex. Many factors, such as the chromatin structure, the position of the nucleosomes, and histone modifications, play an important role in the organization and accessibility of the DNA. Consequently, these factors are also important for the activation and inactivation of genes. Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin using sequencing (ATAC-Seq) is a method to investigate the accessibility of chromatin and thus a method to determine regulatory mechanisms of gene expression. The method can help identify promoter regions and potential enhancers and silencers. A promoter is the DNA region close to the transcription start site (TSS). It contains binding sites for transcription factors that will recruit the RNA polymerase. An enhancer is a DNA region that can be located up to 1 Mb downstream or upstream of the promoter. When transcription factors bind an enhancer and contact a promoter region, the transcription of the gene is increased. In contrast, a silencer decreases or inhibits the gene's expression. ATAC-Seq has become popular for identifying accessible regions of the genome as it's easier, faster and requires less cells than alternative techniques, such as FAIRE-Seq and DNase-Seq.

About This Material

This is a Hands-on Tutorial from the GTN which is usable either for individual self-study, or as a teaching material in a classroom.

Questions this will address

• Which DNA regions are accessible in the human lymphoblastoid cell line GM12878?
• How to analyse and visualise ATAC-Seq data?

Learning Objectives

• Apply appropriate analysis and quality control steps for ATAC-Seq
• Generate a heatmap of transcription start site accessibility
• Visualise peaks for specific regions