A clustering approach for identification of enriched domains from histone modification ChIP-Seq data

Chromatin states are the key to gene regulation and cell identity. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) coupled with high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-Seq) is increasingly being used to map epigenetic states across genomes of diverse species. Chromatin modification profiles are frequently noisy and diffuse, spanning regions ranging from several nucleosomes to large domains of multiple genes. Much of the early work on the identification of ChIP-enriched regions for ChIP-Seq data has focused on identifying localized regions, such as transcription factor binding sites. Bioinformatic tools to identify diffuse domains of ChIP-enriched regions have been lacking.