ChIP-seq datasets provide a wealth of information for the identification of candidate regulatory elements in the genome. For this potential to be fully realized, methods for evaluating data quality and for distinguishing reproducible signal from technical and biological noise are necessary. Here, the computational methods for addressing these challenges developed by the ENCODE Consortium are described and the key considerations for analyzing and interpreting ChIP-seq data are discussed.
Keywords: Chromatin immunoprecipitation; High-throughput sequencing; Histone modifications; Regulatory elements; Transcription factors.