Parallel single-cell sequencing links transcriptional and epigenetic heterogeneity

  • Nat Methods. 2016 Mar;13(3):229-232. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.3728.
Christof Angermueller  #  1 ,  Stephen J Clark  #  2 ,  Heather J Lee  #  2  3 ,  Iain C Macaulay  #  3 ,  Mabel J Teng  3 ,  Tim Xiaoming Hu  1  3  4 ,  Felix Krueger  5 ,  Sebastien Smallwood  2 ,  Chris P Ponting  3  4 ,  Thierry Voet  3  6 ,  Gavin Kelsey  2 ,  Oliver Stegle  1 ,  Wolf Reik  2  3
Affiliations
  • 1. European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK.
  • 2. Epigenetics Programme, Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK.
  • 3. Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK.
  • 4. Medical Research Council Functional Genomics Unit, University of Oxford, UK.
  • 5. Bioinformatics Group, Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK.
  • 6. Department of Human Genetics, Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 26752769 DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.3728
Abstract

We report scM&T-seq, a method for parallel single-cell genome-wide methylome and transcriptome Sequencing that allows for the discovery of associations between transcriptional and epigenetic variation. Profiling of 61 mouse embryonic stem cells confirmed known links between DNA methylation and transcription. Notably, the method revealed previously unrecognized associations between heterogeneously methylated distal regulatory elements and transcription of key pluripotency genes.