Benjamin Berman
Assistant Professor of Bioinformatics
Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine
University of Southern California
Deciphering combinatorial epigenomic patterns using NOMe-seq
Cancer mutations commonly occur in genes encoding regulators of DNA methylation and nucleosome organization. We are investigating the interplay between these features using our bisulfite-sequencing based Nucleosome Occupancy and Methylation (NOMe-seq) assay. I will describe our use of this technology to profile cancer cells that lack DNA methyltransferases, work that is revealing dramatic changes to nucleosome organization in the absence of DNA methylation. I will discuss the bioinformatic challenges of analyzing this data type, along with unique opportunities to exploit its single molecule nature for the discovery of discrete subpopulations of cells within mixed samples.
