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The assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing (ATAC-seq) provides a simple and scalable way to detect the unique chromatin landscape associated with a cell type and how it may be altered by perturbation or disease. ATAC-seq requires a relatively small number of input cells and does not require a priori knowledge of the epigenetic marks or transcription factors governing the dynamics of the system. Here we describe an updated and optimized protocol for ATAC-seq, called Omni-ATAC, that is applicable across a broad range of cell and tissue types. The ATAC-seq workflow has five main steps: sample preparation, transposition, library preparation, sequencing and data analysis. This protocol details the steps to generate and sequence ATAC-seq libraries, with recommendations for sample preparation and downstream bioinformatic analysis. ATAC-seq libraries for roughly 12 samples can be generated in 10 h by someone familiar with basic molecular biology, and downstream sequencing analysis can be implemented using benchmarked pipelines by someone with basic bioinformatics skills and with access to a high-performance computing environment. A protocol for generating chromatin accessibility profiles from a broad variety of cell and tissue types, including a step-by-step workflow for library preparation and guidelines for data processing and downstream analysis.

Identifying the causes of human diseases requires deconvolution of abnormal molecular phenotypes spanning DNA accessibility, gene expression and protein abundance1–3. We present a single-cell framework that integrates highly multiplexed protein quantification, transcriptome profiling and analysis of chromatin accessibility. Using this approach, we establish a normal epigenetic baseline for healthy blood development, which we then use to deconvolve aberrant molecular features within blood from patients with mixed-phenotype acute leukemia4,5. Despite widespread epigenetic heterogeneity within the patient cohort, we observe common malignant signatures across patients as well as patient-specific regulatory features that are shared across phenotypic compartments of individual patients. Integrative analysis of transcriptomic and chromatin-accessibility maps identified 91,601 putative peak-to-gene linkages and transcription factors that regulate leukemia-specific genes, such as RUNX1-linked regulatory elements proximal to the marker gene CD69. These results demonstrate how integrative, multiomic analysis of single cells within the framework of normal development can reveal both distinct and shared molecular mechanisms of disease from patient samples.

The advent of single-cell chromatin accessibility profiling has accelerated the ability to map gene regulatory landscapes but has outpaced the development of scalable software to rapidly extract biological meaning from these data. Here we present a software suite for single-cell analysis of regulatory chromatin in R (ArchR; https://www.archrproject.com/ ) that enables fast and comprehensive analysis of single-cell chromatin accessibility data. ArchR provides an intuitive, user-focused interface for complex single-cell analyses, including doublet removal, single-cell clustering and cell type identification, unified peak set generation, cellular trajectory identification, DNA element-to-gene linkage, transcription factor footprinting, mRNA expression level prediction from chromatin accessibility and multi-omic integration with single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). Enabling the analysis of over 1.2 million single cells within 8 h on a standard Unix laptop, ArchR is a comprehensive software suite for end-to-end analysis of single-cell chromatin accessibility that will accelerate the understanding of gene regulation at the resolution of individual cells. ArchR is a software suite that enables efficient and end-to-end analysis of single-cell chromatin accessibility data (scATAC-seq).

Understanding complex tissues requires single-cell deconstruction of gene regulation with precision and scale. Here, we assess the performance of a massively parallel droplet-based method for mapping transposase-accessible chromatin in single cells using sequencing (scATAC-seq). We apply scATAC-seq to obtain chromatin profiles of more than 200,000 single cells in human blood and basal cell carcinoma. In blood, application of scATAC-seq enables marker-free identification of cell type-specific cis- and trans-regulatory elements, mapping of disease-associated enhancer activity and reconstruction of trajectories of cellular differentiation. In basal cell carcinoma, application of scATAC-seq reveals regulatory networks in malignant, stromal and immune cells in the tumor microenvironment. Analysis of scATAC-seq profiles from serial tumor biopsies before and after programmed cell death protein 1 blockade identifies chromatin regulators of therapy-responsive T cell subsets and reveals a shared regulatory program that governs intratumoral CD8+ T cell exhaustion and CD4+ T follicular helper cell development. We anticipate that scATAC-seq will enable the unbiased discovery of gene regulatory factors across diverse biological systems.

Howard Chang, Ravindra Majeti and colleagues define the chromatin accessibility and transcriptional landscapes in 13 human primary blood cell types and in acute myeloid leukemia cells. They identify potential regulators governing hematopoietic differentiation and genetic elements linked to regulatory evolution in cancer cells. We define the chromatin accessibility and transcriptional landscapes in 13 human primary blood cell types that span the hematopoietic hierarchy. Exploiting the finding that the enhancer landscape better reflects cell identity than mRNA levels, we enable 'enhancer cytometry' for enumeration of pure cell types from complex populations. We identify regulators governing hematopoietic differentiation and further show the lineage ontogeny of genetic elements linked to diverse human diseases. In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), chromatin accessibility uncovers unique regulatory evolution in cancer cells with a progressively increasing mutation burden. Single AML cells exhibit distinctive mixed regulome profiles corresponding to disparate developmental stages. A method to account for this regulatory heterogeneity identified cancer-specific deviations and implicated HOX factors as key regulators of preleukemic hematopoietic stem cell characteristics. Thus, regulome dynamics can provide diverse insights into hematopoietic development and disease.

Simultaneous measurement of cell lineage and cell fates is a longstanding goal in biomedicine. Here we describe EMBLEM, a strategy to track cell lineage using endogenous mitochondrial DNA variants in ATAC-seq data. We show that somatic mutations in mitochondrial DNA can reconstruct cell lineage relationships at single cell resolution with high sensitivity and specificity. Using EMBLEM, we define the genetic and epigenomic clonal evolution of hematopoietic stem cells and their progenies in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. EMBLEM extends lineage tracing to any eukaryotic organism without genetic engineering.

The Omni-ATAC protocol improves the signal-to-background ratio in chromatin accessibility profiles and is suitable for a range of cell lines and primary cell types, as well as frozen tissue. We present Omni-ATAC, an improved ATAC-seq protocol for chromatin accessibility profiling that works across multiple applications with substantial improvement of signal-to-background ratio and information content. The Omni-ATAC protocol generates chromatin accessibility profiles from archival frozen tissue samples and 50-μm sections, revealing the activities of disease-associated DNA elements in distinct human brain structures. The Omni-ATAC protocol enables the interrogation of personal regulomes in tissue context and translational studies.

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) provides a high-quality resource of molecular data on a large variety of human cancers. Corces et al. used a recently modified assay to profile chromatin accessibility to determine the accessible chromatin landscape in 410 TCGA samples from 23 cancer types (see the Perspective by Taipale). When the data were integrated with other omics data available for the same tumor samples, inherited risk loci for cancer predisposition were revealed, transcription factors and enhancers driving molecular subtypes of cancer with patient survival differences were identified, and noncoding mutations associated with clinical prognosis were discovered. Science , this issue p. eaav1898 ; see also p. 401 Chromatin accessibility profiling identifies principles of epigenetic regulation in 23 primary human cancers. We present the genome-wide chromatin accessibility profiles of 410 tumor samples spanning 23 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We identify 562,709 transposase-accessible DNA elements that substantially extend the compendium of known cis-regulatory elements. Integration of ATAC-seq (the assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing) with TCGA multi-omic data identifies a large number of putative distal enhancers that distinguish molecular subtypes of cancers, uncovers specific driving transcription factors via protein-DNA footprints, and nominates long-range gene-regulatory interactions in cancer. These data reveal genetic risk loci of cancer predisposition as active DNA regulatory elements in cancer, identify gene-regulatory interactions underlying cancer immune evasion, and pinpoint noncoding mutations that drive enhancer activation and may affect patient survival. These results suggest a systematic approach to understanding the noncoding genome in cancer to advance diagnosis and therapy.

Polycomb-group proteins play critical roles in gene silencing through the deposition of histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation (H3K27me3) and chromatin compaction. This process is essential for embryonic stem cell (ESC) pluripotency, differentiation, and development. Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) can both read and write H3K27me3, enabling progressive spreading of H3K27me3 on the linear genome. Long-range Polycomb-associated DNA contacts have also been described, but their regulation and role in gene silencing remain unclear. Here, we apply H3K27me3 HiChIP, a protein-directed chromosome conformation method, and optical reconstruction of chromatin architecture to profile long-range Polycomb-associated DNA loops that span tens to hundreds of megabases across multiple topological associated domains in mouse ESCs and human induced pluripotent stem cells. We find that H3K27me3 loop anchors are enriched for Polycomb nucleation points and coincide with key developmental genes. Genetic deletion of H3K27me3 loop anchors results in disruption of spatial contact between distant loci and altered H3K27me3 in cis, both locally and megabases away on the same chromosome. In mouse embryos, loop anchor deletion leads to ectopic activation of the partner gene, suggesting that Polycomb-associated loops control gene silencing during development. Further, we find that alterations in PRC2 occupancy resulting from an RNA binding–deficient EZH2 mutant are accompanied by loss of Polycomb-associated DNA looping. Together, these results suggest PRC2 uses RNA binding to enhance long-range chromosome folding and H3K27me3 spreading. Developmental gene loci have unique roles in Polycomb spreading, emerging as important architectural elements of the epigenome.

Metastasis is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths and enables cancer cells to compromise organ function by expanding in secondary sites. Since primary tumours and metastases often share the same constellation of driver mutations, the mechanisms that drive their distinct phenotypes are unclear. Here we show that inactivation of the frequently mutated tumour suppressor gene LKB1 (encoding liver kinase B1) has evolving effects throughout the progression of lung cancer, which leads to the differential epigenetic re-programming of early-stage primary tumours compared with late-stage metastases. By integrating genome-scale CRISPR–Cas9 screening with bulk and single-cell multi-omic analyses, we unexpectedly identify LKB1 as a master regulator of chromatin accessibility in lung adenocarcinoma primary tumours. Using an in vivo model of metastatic progression, we further show that loss of LKB1 activates the early endoderm transcription factor SOX17 in metastases and a metastatic-like sub-population of cancer cells within primary tumours. The expression of SOX17 is necessary and sufficient to drive a second wave of epigenetic changes in LKB1-deficient cells that enhances metastatic ability. Overall, our study demonstrates how the downstream effects of an individual driver mutation can change throughout cancer development, with implications for stage-specific therapeutic resistance mechanisms and the gene regulatory underpinnings of metastatic evolution. Pierce et al perform genome-wide CRISPR screening and identify LKB1 as a regulator of chromatin accessibility and metastatic progression in lung cancer through a mechanism of SOX17-mediated epigenetic changes.