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MOWChIP-seq for low-input and multiplexed profiling of genome-wide histone modifications

Nature Protocols volume 14, pages 3366–3394 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Epigenetic mechanisms such as histone modifications play critical roles in adaptive tuning of chromatin structures. Profiling of various histone modifications at the genome scale using tissues from animal and human samples is an important step for functional studies of epigenomes and epigenomics-based precision medicine. Because the profile of a histone mark is highly specific to a cell type, cell isolation from tissues is often necessary to generate a homogeneous cell population, and such operations tend to yield a low number of cells. In addition, high-throughput processing is often desirable because of the multiplexity of histone marks of interest and the large quantity of samples in a hospital setting. In this protocol, we provide detailed instructions for device fabrication, setup, and operation of microfluidic oscillatory washing–based chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (MOWChIP-seq) for profiling of histone modifications using as few as 100 cells per assay with a throughput as high as eight assays in one run. MOWChIP-seq operation involves flowing of chromatin fragments through a packed bed of antibody-coated beads, followed by vigorous microfluidic oscillatory washing. Our process is semi-automated to reduce labor and improve reproducibility. Using one eight-unit device, it takes 2 d to produce eight sequencing libraries from chromatin samples. The technology is scalable. We used the protocol to study a number of histone modifications in various types of mouse and human tissues. The protocol can be conducted by a user who is familiar with molecular biology procedures and has basic engineering skills.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2: Schematics for electrical and pressure control systems associated with single-unit and eight-unit MOWChIP devices.
Fig. 3: The assembly of the pneumatic control system for the eight-unit MOWChIP device shown in a step-by-step manner.
Fig. 4: Design and operation of an eight-unit MOWChIP device.
Fig. 5: The experimental setup for MOWChIP operation.
Fig. 6: DNA fragment size distributions measured by a TapeStation.
Fig. 7: Optimization of antibody quantity using MOWChIP-qPCR for four histone marks.
Fig. 8: MOWChIP-seq data for H3K27me3, H3K9me3, H3K36me3 and H3K79me2 generated using 1,000 nuclei from mouse prefrontal cortex per assay.

Data availability

Gene Expression Omnibus: MOWChIP-seq data on H3K27me3, H3K9me3, H3K36me3, and H3K79me2 in mouse prefrontal cortex (Fig. 8) are deposited under accession no. GSE123606.

Code availability

A custom script is included as Supplementary Data 4.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. González-Maeso of Virginia Commonwealth University for providing mouse brain samples. This work was supported by US National Institutes of Health grants CA214176 (C.L.), EB017235 (C.L.), HG009256 (C.L.) and HG008623 (C.L.) and seed grants from the Center for Engineered Health of the Virginia Tech Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Bohan Zhu, Yuan-Pang Hsieh.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Bohan Zhu, Yuan-Pang Hsieh, Travis W. Murphy, Qiang Zhang, Lynette B. Naler & Chang Lu

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  1. Bohan Zhu
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Contributions

C.L. conceived the concept of MOWChIP-seq and supervised the research and development. Y.-P.H. and B.Z. conducted MOWChIP-seq assays with various samples. T.W.M. set up the control system for multi-unit MOWChIP devices. Q.Z. helped optimize the protocol. L.B.N. wrote the script for data analysis. B.Z., T.W.M., L.B.N. and C.L. wrote the manuscript. All authors commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chang Lu.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

C.L. declares that he is a co-inventor of a US patent (9,732,377) issued on MOWChIP-seq. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Protocols thanks Jeong Heon Lee and other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Related links

Key references using this protocol

Cao, Z., Chen, C., He, B., Tan, K. & Lu, C. Nat. Methods 12, 959–962 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.3488

Cox, M., Deng, C., Naler, L. B., Lu, C. & Verbridge, S. S. ACS Biomater. Sci. Eng. 5, 1544–1552 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1021/acsbiomaterials.9b00161

Integrated supplementary information

Supplementary Fig. 1 Various tubing assemblies used in the protocol.

(a) The tubing assemblies. (b) The assemblies connected to a microfluidic device.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Fig. 1

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Data 1

A LabVIEW program for operating the single-unit MOWChIP device.

Supplementary Data 2

A LabVIEW program for operating the eight-unit MOWChIP device.

Supplementary Data 3

A LayoutEditor file for the eight-unit MOWChIP device.

Supplementary Data 4

A custom script for ChIP-seq data analysis.

Supplementary Video 1

A video on major steps involved in MOWChIP.

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Zhu, B., Hsieh, YP., Murphy, T.W. et al. MOWChIP-seq for low-input and multiplexed profiling of genome-wide histone modifications. Nat Protoc 14, 3366–3394 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41596-019-0223-x

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