Chromatinorganizationandepigenomicmodificationssuchascytosinemethylationplayinstrumentalroles ingeneregulationduringhumandevelopmentandinhealthyanddiseasestates.Althoughthegenomeis nearlyidenticalineachcellinthehumanbody,chromatinconformationandcytosineDNAmethylationare highlydynamicacrosscelltypesandduringdevelopment.Previousstudiesshowedthatchromatinlooping canberegulatedbycytosinemethylation.However,ourcurrentstateofknowledgeoftheinteractions betweenchromatinorganizationandDNAmethylationisbuiltonanalyzingculturedcellsandbulktissues. Theinteractionbetweencell-typespecificchromatinloopingandmethylationinheterogeneoustissues remainlargelyunexplored.Thisprojectwilldevelopsingle-cellmulti-omicmethodstojointlyanalyze chromatinconformationandcytosinemethylationfromthesamecell.Themethodswillleadtohighquality cell-typespecificchromatinconformationmapsofhumantissue,andtheanalysisoftherelationship betweenchromatinconformationandcytosinemethylation.Ifsuccessful,theproposedmethodswillgreatly facilitatethestudyofgeneregulationincomplexhumantissuesandinheterogeneousdiseasessuchas cancer.
Thegoaloftheprojectistodevelopmethodstostudytheinteractionbetweenatypeofchemical modificationtoDNA-cytosinemethylation-andthethree-dimensionalorganizationofthehumangenome. Cytosinemethylationandgenomeorganizationaretwoimportantmechanismstocontrolgeneexpression inhealthyanddiseasedtissues.Thesemethodswillallowthegenerationofmulti-dimensionalDNA methylationandgenomeorganizationmapsfromsinglehumancells.