Snapshot: clustering and visualizing epigenetic history during cell differentiation

Abstract

Epigenetic modification of chromatin plays a pivotal role in regulating gene expression during cell differentiation. The scale and complexity of epigenetic data pose significant challenges for biologists to identify the regulatory events controlling cell differentiation. Here, we present a new method, called Snapshot, that uses epigenetic data to generate a hierarchical visualization for DNA regions with epigenetic features segregating along any given cell differentiation hierarchy of interest. Different hierarchies of cell types may be used to highlight the epigenetic history specific to any particular cell lineage. We demonstrate the utility of Snapshot using data from the VISION project, an international project for ValIdated Systematic IntegratiON of epigenomic data in mouse and human hematopoiesis.\n\nAvailability and implementation: https://github.com/guanjue/snapshot