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The NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Mapping Consortium

Nature Biotechnology volume 28, pages 1045–1048 (2010)Cite this article

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The NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Mapping Consortium aims to produce a public resource of epigenomic maps for stem cells and primary ex vivo tissues selected to represent the normal counterparts of tissues and organ systems frequently involved in human disease.

Recent years have seen remarkable progress in understanding of human genetics, enabled by the availability of the human genome sequence and increasingly high-throughput technologies for DNA analysis1. Yet despite their breadth and comprehensiveness, purely DNA sequence–level investigations do not shed light on a crucial component of human biology: how the same genome sequence can give rise to over 200 different cell types through remarkably consistent differentiation programs. This process of developmental specification, classically termed 'epigenesis', is now known to involve differential regulation of genes and their products2. Aberrant regulation of such phenomena has been extensively linked to human diseases and, additionally, can be influenced by environmental inputs3,4,5.

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Figure 1: Layers of genome organization.

B. Wong

Figure 2: Portal for the NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Mapping Consortium.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Waterland, C. Epstein, N. Shoresh and all consortium members, as well as the NIH Epigenomics Implementation Group, for discussions and feedback in the drafting of this document.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bradley E. Bernstein, Alexander Meissner, Manolis Kellis, Eric S. Lander and Tarjei S. Mikkelsen are at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.,

    Bradley E Bernstein, Alexander Meissner, Manolis Kellis, Eric S Lander & Tarjei S Mikkelsen

  2. Department of Pathology, Bradley E. Bernstein is also at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.,

    Bradley E Bernstein

  3. Alexander Meissner is in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.,

    Alexander Meissner

  4. John A. Stamatoyannopoulos is in the Departments of Genome Sciences and Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, USA.,

    John A Stamatoyannopoulos

  5. Joseph F. Costello is in the Department of Neurosurgery, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.,

    Joseph F Costello

  6. Bing Ren is at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, University of California San Diego School of Medicine, La Jolla, California, USA.,

    Bing Ren

  7. Aleksandar Milosavljevic and Arthur L. Beaudet are in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA.,

    Aleksandar Milosavljevic & Arthur L Beaudet

  8. Marco A. Marra and Martin Hirst are at the Genome Sciences Centre, British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.,

    Marco A Marra & Martin Hirst

  9. Joseph R. Ecker is in the Genomic Analysis Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California, USA.,

    Joseph R Ecker

  10. Peggy J. Farnham is at the Genome Center, University of California at Davis, Davis, California, USA.,

    Peggy J Farnham

  11. James A. Thomson is at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.,

    James A Thomson

Authors
  1. Bradley E Bernstein
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  2. John A Stamatoyannopoulos
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  5. Aleksandar Milosavljevic
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  6. Alexander Meissner
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  12. Martin Hirst
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  13. Eric S Lander
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  14. Tarjei S Mikkelsen
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  15. James A Thomson
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Correspondence to Bradley E Bernstein.

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Bernstein, B., Stamatoyannopoulos, J., Costello, J. et al. The NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Mapping Consortium. Nat Biotechnol 28, 1045–1048 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1010-1045

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