Chromatin information content landscapes inform transcription factor and DNA interactions

Abstract

Interactions between transcription factors (TFs) and chromatin are fundamental to genome organization and regulation and, ultimately, cell state. Here, we use information theory to measure signatures of TF-chromatin interactions encoded in the patterns of the accessible genome, which we call chromatin information enrichment (CIE). We calculate CIE for hundreds of TF motifs across human tissues and identify two classes: low and high CIE. The 10-20% of TF motifs with high CIE associate with higher protein-DNA residence time, including different binding sites subclasses of the same TF, increased nucleosome phasing, specific protein domains, and the genetic control of both gene expression and chromatin accessibility. These results show that variations in the information content of chromatin architecture reflect functional biological variation, with implications for cell state dynamics and memory.