Abstract
Epigenome constitutes an important layer that regulates gene expression and dynamics during development and diseases. Extensive efforts have been made to develop epigenome profiling methods using a low number of cells and with high throughput. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) is the most important approach for profiling genome-wide epigenetic changes such as histone modifications. In this report, we demonstrate microfluidic ChIPmentation (mu-CM), a microfluidic technology that enables profiling cell samples that individually do not generate enough ChIP DNA for sequencing library preparation. We used a simple microfluidic device to allow eight samples to be processed simultaneously. The samples were indexed differently using a tagmentation-based approach (ChIPmentation) and then merged for library preparation. A histone modification profile for each individual sample was obtained by demultiplexing the sequencing reads based on the indexes. Our technology allowed profiling 20 cells and is well suited for cell-type-specific studies using low-abundance tissues.