The dynamics of chromatin accessibility during EMT

The power of our genome-wide survey lies in that we were able to query chromatin accessibility changes concurrently with those in DNA methylation. We identified both opening and closing events, predominantly independent of DNA methylation, in both systems. Our results have powerful implications for future basic and clinical research on this developmental process and its resurfacing during cancer cell metastasis. To address epigenetic changes that mediate EMT, we used two models in the human system: EMT induced by the transcriptional repressor Twist as well as EMT induced by TGF-beta. We performed AcceSssIble on these cells at several time points through the course of the transition and identified genes that need to be repressed to allow for the process.