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bioRxiv · 10.1101/646331

APEC: An accesson-based method for single-cell chromatin accessibility analysis

Li, B.·Li, Y.·Li, K.·Zhu, L.·Yu, Q.·Fang, J.·Cai, P.·Jiang, C.·Qu, K.
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Abstract

The development of sequencing technologies has promoted the survey of genome-wide chromatin accessibility at single-cell resolution; however, comprehensive analysis of single-cell epigenomic profiles remains a challenge. Here, we introduce an accessibility pattern-based epigenomic clustering (APEC) method, which classifies each individual cell by groups of accessible regions with synergistic signal patterns termed "accessons". By integrating with other analytical tools, this python-based APEC package greatly improves the accuracy of unsupervised single-cell clustering for many different public data sets. APEC also predicts gene expressions, identifies significant differential enriched motifs, discovers super enhancers, and projects pseudotime trajectories. Furthermore, we adopted a fluorescent tagmentation-based single-cell ATAC-seq technique (ftATAC-seq) to investigated the per cell regulome dynamics of mouse thymocytes. Associated with ftATAC-seq, APEC revealed a detailed epigenomic heterogeneity of thymocytes, characterized the developmental trajectory and predicted the regulators that control the stages of maturation process. Overall, this work illustrates a powerful approach to study single-cell epigenomic heterogeneity and regulome dynamics.

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Li, B., Li, Y., Li, K., Zhu, L., Yu, Q., Fang, J., Cai, P., Jiang, C., Qu, K.. 2019-05-23. APEC: An accesson-based method for single-cell chromatin accessibility analysis. https://doi.org/10.1101/646331

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