Widespread conservation of chromatin accessibility patterns and transcription factor binding in human and chimpanzee induced pluripotent stem cells

Abstract

Changes in gene regulation have been shown to contribute to phenotypic differences between closely related species, most notably in primates. It is likely that a subset of inter-species regulatory differences can be explained by changes in chromatin accessibility and transcription factor binding, yet there is a paucity of comparative data sets with which to investigate this. Using ATAC-seq, we profiled genome-wide chromatin accessibility in a matched set of 6 human and 6 chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes , our closest living relative) induced pluripotent stem cells from which we have previously collected gene expression data. We examined chromatin accessibility patterns near 20,745 orthologous tr..