Description
The simultaneous genotyping of tens of thousands of SNP using SNP microarrays is a very important tool that is revolutionizing genetics and molecular biology. In this work, we present a new application of this technique by using it to assess chromatin immunoprecipitation (CHIP) as a means to assess the multiple genomic locations bound by a protein complex recognized by an antibody. We illustrate the use of this technique with an analysis of the change in histone H4 acetylation, a marker of open chromatin and transcriptionally active genomic regions, which occur during the differentiation of human myoblasts into myotubes. Our results are validated by the observation of a significant correlation between the histone modifications detected and the expression of the nearby genes, as measured by DNA microarrays.