Correlating histone modification patterns with gene expression data during hematopoiesis.

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) in mammals are an ideal system to study differentiation. While transcription factors (TFs) control the differentiation of HSCs to distinctive terminal blood cells, accumulating evidence suggests that chromatin structure and modifications constitute another critical layer of gene regulation. Recent genome-wide studies based on next-generation sequencing reveal that histone modifications are linked to gene expression and contribute to hematopoiesis. Here, we briefly review the bioinformatics aspects for ChIP-Seq and RNA-Seq data analysis with applications to the epigenetic studies of hematopoiesis and provide a practical guide to several basic data analysis methods.