DNA binding factors are essential for regulating gene expression. CTCF and cohesin are DNA binding factors with central roles in chromatin organization and gene expression. We determined the sites of CTCF and cohesin binding to DNA in mouse brain, genome wide and in an allele-specific manner with high read-depth ChIP-seq. By comparing our results with existing data for mouse liver and embryonic stem (ES) cells, we investigated the tissue specificity of CTCF binding sites. ES cells have fewer unique CTCF binding sites occupied than liver and brain, consistent with a ground-state pattern of CTCF binding that is elaborated during differentiation. CTCF binding sites without the canonical consensus motif were highly tissue specific. In brain, a third of CTCF and cohesin binding sites coincide, consistent with the potential for many interactions between cohesin and CTCF but also many instances of independent action. In the context of genomic imprinting, CTCF and/or cohesin bind to a majority but not all differentially methylated regions, with preferential binding to the unmethylated parental allele. Whether the parental allele-specific methylation was established in the parental germlines or post-fertilization in the embryo is not a determinant in CTCF or cohesin binding. These findings link CTCF and cohesin with the control regions of a subset of imprinted genes, supporting the notion that imprinting control is mechanistically diverse.
Pubmed ID: 23804403 RIS Download
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Integrates many useful tools to simplify ChIP-chip analysis for biologists.
View all literature mentionsSoftware tool designed for mapping short reads onto a reference genome generated from Illumina, Ion Torrent, and 454 NGS platforms. Its features include paired end alignment, methylation status analysis, automatic base quality calibration, and in built adapter trimming and base quality trimming.
View all literature mentionsImage processing software designed to analyse functional images of cells and blood vessels, primarily from two-photon microscopy. CHIPS is a set of classes and functions for MATLAB that integrates a number of algorithms, both novel and existing, into a complete image processing pipeline.
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