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Discipline 07 of 18 38 Tools Stage 7: Epigenetic Landscapes & 3D Conformation

🧬 7. ChIP-Seq, ATAC-Seq, CUT&Tag, Methylation & Hi-C

Open chromatin accessibility, transcription factor binding site discovery, histone modification peak calling, whole-genome bisulfite methylation, and 3D chromatin architecture.

Essential Software: MACS3 SEACR HOMER Bismark methylKit HiC-Pro
Comparative Analysis Production Benchmarks

Algorithm Architecture & Decision Matrices

Detailed comparison cards highlighting algorithmic trade-offs, strengths, weaknesses, and recommended production setups.

Peak Calling, CUT&Tag & Footprinting
MACS3 SEACR (CUT&Tag) HOMER Genrich SICER2 IDR csaw DiffBind TOBIAS MEME Suite chromVAR
Narrow/broad histone marks, Tn5 shifted accessibility peaks, digital genomic footprints, and Irreproducible Discovery Rate.
Single-Cell ATAC & Signal Tracks
Cell Ranger ATAC ArchR Signac SnapATAC2 deepTools ChIPseeker nf-core/atacseq
Cell-level chromatin accessibility profiling, co-accessibility networks, peak annotation, and bigWig signal track matrices.
DNA Methylation (Bisulfite & Long-Reads)
Bismark bwa-meth BS-Seeker2 MethylDackel methylKit DSS DMRcate metilene MOABS MethPipe modkit (ONT) Nanopolish Dorado minfi (Arrays)
In silico bisulfite 3-letter alignment, differentially methylated regions (DMRs), direct native ONT/PacBio 5mC/5hmC calling.
3D Chromatin & Hi-C Conformation
HiC-Pro Juicer / Juicebox cooler / cooltools HiCExplorer Pairtools Arrowhead HiGlass PretextView FAN-C
Topologically associating domains (TADs), chromatin loops, Micro-C contact matrices, and interactive multi-resolution contact maps.
Hardware & Execution Profiles

Primary Software & Algorithms in Epigenomics & Chromatin Regulation

Direct command-line recipes, Conda environment specifications, memory footprints, and license metadata.

ChIP-Seq & ATAC-Seq Peak Caller
💻 < 8GB RAM Python / C • Dynamic Poisson

MACS3

Docs ↗ By Tao Liu (Roswell Park)
(License: BSD-3-Clause)

Model-based Analysis of ChIP-Seq and ATAC-Seq data. Dynamically estimates local Poisson backgrounds to call narrow transcription factor binding sites and broad histone marks.

Formats: Input: BAM, BED • Output: narrowPeak, broadPeak, bdg bedGraph
💻 4-8 CPU Cores • 8-16 GB RAM
conda install -c bioconda macs3
ChIP/ATAC Exploration & Plots
💻 < 8GB RAM Python • Multiprocessing

deepTools

Docs ↗ By Fidel Ramírez et al. (Max Planck)
(License: GPL-3.0)

User-friendly suite for deep-sequencing data exploration. Generates normalized BigWig coverage files (RPGC/1x, RPKM), computes matrix heatmaps across TSS regions, and QC fingerprint plots.

Formats: Input: BAM, BigWig, BED • Output: BigWig, PDF Heatmaps, Profile Plots
💻 4-8 CPU Cores • 8-16 GB RAM
conda install -c bioconda deeptools
Bisulfite-Seq Aligner & Methylation
💻 16-32GB RAM Perl • Bowtie2 / Hisat2

Bismark

Docs ↗ By Felix Krueger (Babraham)
(License: GPL-3.0)

Maps bisulfite-treated sequencing reads (WGBS, RRBS) to reference genomes and determines cytosine methylation context (CpG, CHG, CHH) with base-resolution methylation call extractors.

Formats: Input: Bisulfite FASTQ • Output: Bismark BAM, Methylation Extractor BedGraph
💻 8-16 CPU Cores • 16-32 GB RAM
conda install -c bioconda bismark
Chromatin State Annotation
💻 < 8GB RAM Java • Multivariate HMM

ChromHMM

Docs ↗ By Jason Ernst & Manolis Kellis (MIT / UCLA)
(License: GPL-3.0)

Integrates multi-histone mark ChIP-seq data to learn de novo chromatin states (active promoters, strong enhancers, Polycomb repression, heterochromatin) via Hidden Markov Models.

Formats: Input: Binarized BED tracks • Output: Segmented Chromatin BED, Heatmaps
💻 4-8 CPU Cores • 8-16 GB RAM
conda install -c bioconda chromhmm
Rapid Methylation Extractor
💻 < 8GB RAM C • HTSlib

MethylDackel

Docs ↗ By Devon Ryan (Max Planck)
(License: MIT)

Blazing-fast methylation extractor for bisulfite sequencing BAM files. Generates per-base CpG, CHG, and CHH methylation percentage bedGraph and bigWig files in minutes.

Formats: Input: Aligned Bisulfite BAM • Output: CpG BedGraph, Methylation metrics
💻 4 CPU Cores • 4 GB RAM
conda install -c bioconda methyldackel
Hi-C Matrix Storage & Analysis
💻 16-32GB RAM Python • HDF5 Storage

Cooler

Docs ↗ By Nezar Abdennur & Leonid Mirny (MIT)
(License: BSD-3-Clause)

Standard package for storing, querying, and manipulating 2D genomic contact matrices (Hi-C, Micro-C, GAM). Efficient multi-resolution zoomify trees for high-res chromatin folding maps.

Formats: Input: Pairs file • Output: .cool, .mcool HDF5 files
💻 8 CPU Cores • 16-32 GB RAM
pip install cooler
Recommended Workflow Progression

Proceed to Stage 8: Genome Assembly, Scaffolding & Pangenomes

Sequencing pipelines proceed sequentially. Move forward to the next analytical domain to explore downstream algorithms and execution profiles.

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