Dnase-Seq Results

Question

[rig]

Hi all, I'm having some conceptual issue grasping what DNase I does. To my understanding DNase I should break pieces of chromatin, so how can we obtain from just that info an insight regarding the active genes? In case DNase-Seq doesn't return that information, what is the result of this experiment?

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Devon Ryan]

DNase-seq tells you about accessibility, not actually gene activity (in effect, the degree to which DNAse can chew up a particular stretch of DNA is dependent on how coiled up that stretch is as less-coiled/bound stretches are more accessible). It's true that increases in accessibilty around transcription start sites will generally correlate to increased expression, but this isn't a 1:1 correlation. It's probably better to interpret highly accessible regions as having increased potential (versus some appropriate background) for transcription.

[rig]

Thanks a lot that cleared things up!