Exploring tangles in the Epigenome : Genome-wide Analysis of G-quadruplexes in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC)

G-quadruplexes (G4s) are four-stranded, non-canonical secondary DNA structures which have been shown to readily form in G-rich sequences in vitro. G4 formation can affect chromatin architecture and has been implicated in promoting genomic instability, and linked to biological processes such as transcription, replication and telomere maintenance. In this project, ChIP-seq data derived with G4-specific antibodies from mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC) are analysed and integrated with different histone 3 (H3) modification data sets.The analysis method follows a standard ChIP-seq data analysis workflow, which includes steps such as calculation of quality metrics, peak calling and downstream analyses. The results show enrichment of G-rich motifs and prevalence of G4s in functional regions such as promoter-TSSs and 5'UTRs. In addition, there is some evidence of a potential association with oncogene promoter regions and location of G4s, which would support previous findings. Furthermore, the results indicate a possible correlation between loss of histone modifications H3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) and H3 lysine 27 acetylation (H3K27ac), and G4 occurence. G4s have become increasingly popular to study in recent times and may harbour potential to be targeted for cancer therapy