Publications by authors named "Alicia N Schep"

Here we introduce Protein-indexed Assay of Transposase Accessible Chromatin with sequencing (Pi-ATAC) that combines single-cell chromatin and proteomic profiling. In conjunction with DNA transposition, the levels of multiple cell surface or intracellular protein epitopes are recorded by index flow cytometry and positions in arrayed microwells, and then subject to molecular barcoding for subsequent pooled analysis. Pi-ATAC simultaneously identifies the epigenomic and proteomic heterogeneity in individual cells.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Human hematopoiesis involves cellular differentiation of multipotent cells into progressively more lineage-restricted states. While the chromatin accessibility landscape of this process has been explored in defined populations, single-cell regulatory variation has been hidden by ensemble averaging. We collected single-cell chromatin accessibility profiles across 10 populations of immunophenotypically defined human hematopoietic cell types and constructed a chromatin accessibility landscape of human hematopoiesis to characterize differentiation trajectories.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

T cells create vast amounts of diversity in the genes that encode their T cell receptors (TCRs), which enables individual clones to recognize specific peptide-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) ligands. Here we combined sequencing of the TCR-encoding genes with assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with sequencing (ATAC-seq) analysis at the single-cell level to provide information on the TCR specificity and epigenomic state of individual T cells. By using this approach, termed transcript-indexed ATAC-seq (T-ATAC-seq), we identified epigenomic signatures in immortalized leukemic T cells, primary human T cells from healthy volunteers and primary leukemic T cells from patient samples.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Adaptive survival requires the coordination of nutrient availability with expenditure of cellular resources. For example, in nutrient-limited environments, 50% of all S. cerevisiae genes synchronize and exhibit periodic bursts of expression in coordination with respiration and cell division in the yeast metabolic cycle (YMC).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Single-cell ATAC-seq (scATAC) yields sparse data that make conventional analysis challenging. We developed chromVAR (http://www.github.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The alternative sigma factor RpoS is a central regulator of many stress responses in The level of functional RpoS differs depending on the stress. The effect of these differing concentrations of RpoS on global transcriptional responses remains unclear. We investigated the effect of RpoS concentration on the transcriptome during stationary phase in rich media.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Metastases are the main cause of cancer deaths, but the mechanisms underlying metastatic progression remain poorly understood. We isolated pure populations of cancer cells from primary tumors and metastases from a genetically engineered mouse model of human small cell lung cancer (SCLC) to investigate the mechanisms that drive the metastatic spread of this lethal cancer. Genome-wide characterization of chromatin accessibility revealed the opening of large numbers of distal regulatory elements across the genome during metastatic progression.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Transcription factors canonically bind nucleosome-free DNA, making the positioning of nucleosomes within regulatory regions crucial to the regulation of gene expression. Using the assay of transposase accessible chromatin (ATAC-seq), we observe a highly structured pattern of DNA fragment lengths and positions around nucleosomes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and use this distinctive two-dimensional nucleosomal "fingerprint" as the basis for a new nucleosome-positioning algorithm called NucleoATAC. We show that NucleoATAC can identify the rotational and translational positions of nucleosomes with up to base-pair resolution and provide quantitative measures of nucleosome occupancy in S.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

During embryonic development, a complex organism is formed from a single starting cell. These processes of growth and differentiation are driven by large transcriptional changes, which are following the expression and activity of transcription factors (TFs). This study sought to compare TF expression during embryonic development in a diverse group of metazoan animals: representatives of vertebrates (Danio rerio, Xenopus tropicalis), a chordate (Ciona intestinalis) and invertebrate phyla such as insects (Drosophila melanogaster, Anopheles gambiae) and nematodes (Caenorhabditis elegans) were sampled, The different species showed overall very similar TF expression patterns, with TF expression increasing during the initial stages of development.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In humans, the enzyme telomerase (hTERT) is responsible for the synthesis of new repeat sequences at the telomeres of chromosomes. Although active in early embryogenesis, the hTERT gene is transcriptionally silenced in almost all somatic cells in the adult, but is aberrantly re-activated in over 90% of human cancers. The molecular mechanisms responsible for repression of this gene are thought to involve the transcription factor CTCF.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Telomeres are regions of repeated DNA sequence that cap the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. They act as disposable safeguards to prevent the loss of important genetic information during DNA replication due to the inability of DNA polymerase to replicate DNA to the ends of linear chromosomes. The synthesis of new telomeric repeats using an RNA molecule as a template is catalyzed by the enzyme telomerase.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF