APPL ICAT I O N NO T E

From minuscule amounts to magnificent results: reliable ChIP-seq
data from 10,000 cells with the True MicroChIP™ and the MicroPlex
Library Preparation™ kits

Abstract
Diagenode has developed groundbreaking solutions for epigenetic studies on very low sample amounts. In this applicationnote, we introduce our unique True MicroChIP Kit and the MicroPlex Library Preparation™ Kit, which enable the reliable
detection of protein-DNA interactions by ChIP-PCR or ChIP-seq starting from inputs as low as 10,000 cells.

Introduction
As Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies have become widespread and more accessible, the primary method
for genome-wide mapping of protein-DNA interactions is now chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by NGS detection(ChIP-seq), which enables the discovery of transcription factor binding sites or patterns of histone modifications. ChIP-seq
is advantageous in providing high-throughput data of the whole genome that can be used for quantitative and qualitative
analysis of the protein-DNA interactions (measured through the enrichment of bound DNA fragments), but it is not without
its disadvantages. A major limitation is the requirement for high amounts of starting material, usually millions of cells. For
scientists who work with limited sample amounts, such as ancient samples or difficult cell types, ChIP-seq has not beena viable analysis method. Diagenode has addressed this limitation with novel technology and kits optimized specifically for
ChIP-seq from extremely low amount of starting materials.
Diagenode has a complete suite of ChIP and ChIP-seq solutions including extensively validated ChIP-seq grade antibodies,
cell lysis and chromatin shearing devices (Bioruptor®), kits for high and low cell numbers, automated epigenetics sample prep,
and kits specialized for ChIP-seq. For ChIP-seq with limited sample amounts, the solutions of choice are the True MicroChIP
kit used in conjunction with the MicroPlex Library Preparation™ kit and our Premium grade antibodies, enabling ChIP-seq
with just a few picograms of input. The MicroPlex kit is an exceptionally fast, user-friendly, and automatable solution withmultiplexing capability optimized for ChIP-seq libraries from picogram inputs of chromatin. The library preparation requires
only three simple steps, with no tube transfers or intermediate purifications required. Additionally, the True MicroChIP kit
has been validated on the Illumina® sequencing platforms, Diagenode’s IP-Star® Compact Automated Workstation, and with
our Premium ChIP-seq grade antibodies, the most extensively validated antibodies on the market, selected specifically for
ChIP-seq applications.
This application note demonstrates a successful example of using the True MicroChIP Kit followed by library preparation
with the MicroPlex kit on as low as 10,000 cells. The True MicroChIP Kit contains everything you need for ChIP: buffers forlysis, washing, elution, precipitants, magnetic beads, and controls (antibody, IgG, PCR primers). Similarly the MicroPlex kit
provides reagents necessary to perform a successful amplification and library preparation: buffers and enzymes for DNA
synthesis and amplification, plus reagents for indexing. The overview of the simple and efficient protocols can be seen inFigure 1.

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A
PPL ICAT IOI O N NOTNO T E

True MicroChIP

A

ChIP-seqB(1)
ChIP’d DNARepair(2)

LigateAmplify Clean-up

a.

(3)

b.

a.

(4)

c.

b.

a.

C

(5)

c.

b.

d.

Illumina® sequencing

(6)

d.

c.

d.

dsDNA template
DNA Repair
Stem-loop
AdaptorCleavable
Replication stop

Addition of Adaptors+xx+

Stem-loop

Cleavable
Replication
Stop

Blunt-end Ligation Adaptor
Nick

Nick

Primer A

Extension and Cleavage

High Fidelity Amplification
BarcodePrimer B

Fig.1A: Schematic of the process from sample prep to ChIP-seq with the True MicroChIP kit.
True MicroChIP procedure: 1. Cell fixation and DNA-protein cross-linking, 2. Cell lysis and chromatin shearing using the Bioruptor®, 3.
Binding of the antibodies to the chromatin, addition of beads, 4. Magnetic immunoprecipitation, 5. Washes of immune complexes, 6. DNA
purification and recovery of ChIP’d DNA; ChIP-sequencing procedure: 1. End-repair, 2. Adapter ligation, 3. Library amplification, 4. Library
purification and sequencing on Illumina® platform.
Fig.1B: Schematic of the library preparation with the MicroPlex kit.
Both procedures can be performed on the IP-Star® Compact Automated Workstation.

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Materials and methods
For the ChIP experiments, 10,000 HeLa-S3 cells were harvested in addition to a higher cell number (~100,000 cells) forcomparison). Using the True MicroChIP Kit, the cells were fixed with formaldehyde and lysed. For chromatin shearing, 5 x 5cycles of 30 seconds on/30 seconds off on the high power setting were done on the Bioruptor® Plus. Shearing efficiency wasanalyzed on 1.5% agarose gel.
The protein-DNA complexes were captured with Diagenode’s ChIP-seq grade H3K4me3 antibody. Magnetic beads wereused for easy isolation and elution. During washes with optimized buffers, DiaMag magnetic racks were used to reduce
background. After elution, ChIP’d DNA was de-crosslinked and purified with phenol/chloroform/isoamyl alcohol solution.
Two carriers were added during the ethanol precipitation in order to increase the DNA recovery.
The IP’d DNA was quantified on a Qubit system with the Quant-IT dsDNA HS assay kit of Invitrogen. Subsequently qPCR
assays were performed with the provided primers for positive and negative control regions to evaluate the ChIP quality.
For sequencing library preparation, we used the MicroPlex kit -- 30 pg and 300 pg of input DNA immunoprecipitated from10,000 cells and 100,000 respectively were used. After end repair of the double-stranded DNA templates, we ligated thecleavable stem-loop adaptors containing the sequencing primer sites, and after proper DNA extension we used them toamplify our sample with a proprietary high fidelity amplification method. After amplification the amount was quantified with
the qPCR based Illumina® library quantification kit from Kapa Biosystems. The amplification was performed by following theMicroPlex manual recommendations. The libraries were purified with the Agencourt AMPure® XP bead-based purification
system. After purification, the libraries were ready for direct sequencing with the Illumina® platform. No size selection wasnecessary.
The ChIP and the library preparation were done manually, but we performed additional validations on the IP-Star® Compact
Automated Workstation to explore the capabilities of automating the kits.
The libraries were sequenced on an Illumina® HiSeq2000 with standard Illumina® reagents, 36 bp single end protocol. The
cluster generation and sequencing were carried out according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
The sequencing was followed by bioinformatics analyses, the primary analysis (cluster filtering, base calling, etc.) wasdone by the standard Illumina® pipeline. The filtered reads were aligned with ELAND to the human genome (version hg19/GRCh37.3). The peak calling was done with SICER with the recommended settings for H3K4me3, and the subsequent custom
analyses were performed with Homer, Bedtools, and internally developed custom scripts.
Detailed information about the above procedures can be found in the respective manuals, downloadable from our website.
Please see the “Further information” section below.

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APPLAPPL ICAT IOI O N NOTNO T EResults
The chromatin shearing of 10,000 cells was very efficient, represented by the smear in Figure 2. We used 30 pg of DNA
extracted from 10,000 cells and 300 pg from the higher cell number experiment. The successful IP was confirmed by qPCR
(Figure 3) which shows good enrichments in positive control regions and negligible signal in negative control regions. For
comparison and proof of consistency, we provide other data obtained with H3K27me3, H3K9me3, and H3K27me3 antibodies,using 10,000 cells and the True MicroChIP Kit. The automated ChIP performed well, demonstrated by a series of ten IPreactions that were reproducible and highly comparable with the manual ChIP results (see Figure 4).

ChIPH3K4me3
H3K4me3ChIP121288121266IgG

10108866442

200
H3K27ac
H3K27ac%input

1220

1515

10

100IgG

IP-Star® CompactAutomated Workstation

25205IgG

55

H3K27ac
H3K27ac

Sat2Sat2ZnF510 ZnF510
cfoscfosGAPDH TSSGAPDH TSS

50H3K9me3
H3K9me3

IgG

IgG00

IgG
IgG

ChIP H3K27me3
ChIP H3K27me3
181816161414121210108866442200
H3K27me3
H3K27me3%input

2515151010

ChIP H3K9me3
ChIP H3K9me3

Myt1
Myt1
TSH2B TSH2B

1200

IgG
IgG

%input

14%input%input

14

H3K4me3
H3K4me3%input

1688

2200

prom
prom

10104422

Figure 2:
ChIP H3K27ac
ChIP H3K27ac
The even smear without
residue shows efficient
16EIF4A2p EIF4A2psonication ACTBp ACTBp

20206644e32525

EIF4A2p
EIF4A2p
ACTBp
ACTBp
Myt1
Myt1
TSH2B
TSH2B

1414%input%input

1010%input%input

1616

EIF4A2prom
prom
EIF4A2GAPDHprom
prom
GAPDH
MBex2
MB ex2
Sat2
Sat2%input%input

1414

ChIPH3K27ac
H3K27ac
ChIP

Myt1
Myt1
TSH2B TSH2B
GAPDHpGAPDHp
EIF4A2p EIF4A2p

IgG

IgG

Figure 3: ChIP efficiency on 10,000 cells.
ChIP assays were performed with several Diagenode antibodies: H3K4me3 antibody(0.25 µg/reaction), H3K27ac (0.1µg/reaction), H3K9me3 (0.5 µg/reaction) and H3K27me3(0.25 µg/reaction). Identical quantity of IgG was used as a control. The qPCR was performed
with primers for two positive loci and two negative loci for each ChIP assay. Figure shows
the recovery, expressed as a percentage of input (the relative amount of immunoprecipitated
DNA compared to input DNA after qPCR analysis).

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Manual ChIPAutomated ChIP
20EIF4A2p
GAPDHp
MB2Sat2%input%input

2010EIF4A2p
GAPDHp
MB2Sat21000
H3K4me3IgG

H3K4me3

IgG

Figure 4: Automated ChIP assay on 10,000 cells.
ChIP assays were performed with the Diagenode antibody against H3K4me3 (0.25 µg/reaction) on the IP-Star® Compact. 0.25 µg of IgG
was used as a control. The qPCR was performed with primers for the positive loci EIF4A2 promoter and GAPDH TSS and the negative loci
Myoglobin exon2 and Sat2. The figure shows the recovery, expressed as a percent of input (the relative amount of immunoprecipitated DNA
compared to input DNA after qPCR analysis).

The bioinformatics analyses after the sequencing show outstanding results from low amounts of starting material. The
30 pg dataset generates low background noise and highly reliable enrichments (peaks) which are confirmed by both the300 pg dataset and the H3K4me3 dataset generated by the Broad Institute for the ENCODE project which was used as anexternal reference. The 300 pg dataset is also performed well and showed better results than the 30 pg dataset. One notabledatapoint is the “Top40 overlap ratio”, which refers to a standard method used in the ENCODE project in which two datasets
are considered identical if at least 80% of the best 40% of the peaks ranked by significance score overlap. The 30 pg dataset
fulfills these criteria for both the 300 pg dataset (considering all of its peaks, not just the best 40%) and the Broad data). The300 pg dataset shows almost identical peaks to Broad with its 98% top40 overlap ratio. See Figure 5 for the matching peaks
and comparative chart.

AB

98%

2%
Matched by Broad Institute dataset
Unmatched by Broad Institute dataset

Figure 5A: Screenshot of the IGV Genome Browser comparing the peaks of different datasets.
The top line (green) is the 30 pg data, the middle one (blue) shows the 300 pg data, while the bottom line (red) is the Broad Institute data.
Figure 5B: Percentage of peaks from the 300 pg set confirmed by Broad Institute data

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APPL ICAT IOI O N NOTNO T EConclusion
We demonstrated that with the True MicroChIP Kit and MicroPlex Library Preparation™ Kit, it is possible to get consistent,reproducible and reliable data from samples as low as 10,000 cells (30 pg).
oThe True MicroChIP kit is the first kit on the market that allows successful ChIP-seq on such low amountso Thetwo kits provide a unique solution to standardize ChIP-seq experiments with low starting amounts of cells,
cell subpopulations, or biopsy sampleso TheMicroPlex Library Preparation™ Kit was successful in the high fidelity amplification of low input amounts
without introducing significant bias

oThe two kits are optimal for automated ChIP and ChIP-seq applications and provide high quality results

o

 The
True MicroChIP kit provides high quality ChIP-PCR results as shown by the results from several key epigenetic
regions (both positive and negative controls)

Further information

AN_TrueMicroChIP_07_13

For further details about applications, the kits, and other referenced products (sonicators, automated workstations, antibodiesetc.), please contact a Diagenode sales representative in your area. You can also contact the Diagenode headquarters directly
at custsupport@diagenode.com and techsupport@diagenode.com. Please also visit www.diagenode.com to find general
information about our products, including manuals, applications, pricing, and more.

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