Measuring histone modifications in the human parasite schistosoma mansoni

Abstract

DNA-binding proteins play critical roles in many major processes such as development and sexual biology of Schistosoma mansoni and are important for the pathogenesis of schistosomiasis. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) experiments followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq) are useful to characterize the association of genomic regions with posttranslational chemical modifications of histone proteins. Challenges in the standard ChIP protocol have motivated recent enhancements in this approach, such as reducing the number of cells required and increasing the resolution. In this chapter, we describe the latest advances made by our group in the ChIP methods to improve the standard ChIP protocol to reduce the number of input cells required and to increase the resolution and robustness of ChIP in S. mansoni.