Confined Migration Induces Heterochromatin Formation and Alters Chromatin Accessibility

We show that confined migration results in predominantly decreased chromatin accessibility, consistent with the increased heterochromatin marks staining. A small fraction of ATAC-seq peaks shows increased accessibility at gene promoters of diverse pathways, such as chromatin silencing, tumor invasion, and DNA damage response; whereas the majority shows decreased accessibility at intergenic regions near centromeres or telomeres, suggesting possible heterochromatin spreading. Overall design: ATAC-seq of HT1080 cells migrating in high (1.7 mg/mL), medium (1.0 mg/mL) and low (0.3 mg/mL) concentration rat tail type-I collagen matrices for 48 hours