Biochemical Analyses of Molecular Mechanisms of Regulation of Genome Functions Using the Locus-specific Chromatin Immunoprecipitation Technologies

Abstract

For comprehensive understanding of molecular mechanisms of regulation of genome functions including transcription and epigenetic regulation, it is essential to identify molecules associated with the genomic regions to be analyzed in vivo. To this end, the author's research group has developed the locus-specific chromatin immunoprecipitation（locus-specific ChIP） technologies consisting of insertional ChIP（ iChIP） and engineered DNA-binding molecule-mediated ChIP（ enChIP）. The locus-specific ChIP technologies are biochemical methods to purify specific genomic regions retaining molecular interactions from cells and combined with mass spectrometry（ MS）, next generation sequencing（NGS）, and other methods to identify molecules associated with the genomic regions. In this review, I describe the basic principles and applications of the locus-specific ChIP technologies.