ICGEC

ICGEC evaluates epigenetic conservation across genes by integrating signals from 16 histone modifications to quantify relative epigenetic changes between cell types or conditions.

Key Features:

• Integrated Signal Analysis: Evaluates the combined influence of 16 histone modifications to provide a holistic measure of gene epigenetic state.
• Relative Change Measurement: Calculates relative changes in the epigenetic context of genes between two conditions rather than relying on absolute differences of individual marks.
• Histone Mark Scoring: Generates scores for each histone modification to identify which marks contribute most to gene expression or epigenetic change.

Scientific Applications:

• Cell Differentiation Studies: Identifies epigenetically dynamic and conserved genes to enhance analysis of cell differentiation processes.
• Epigenotype-Phenotype Relationship Exploration: Enables investigation of correlations between combined histone modification patterns and phenotypic traits.
• Identification of Differentiation-Direction-Specific Genes: Detects genes whose epigenetic changes align with cell identity functions during differentiation.

Methodology:

Integrates multiple histone modification signals to compute a gene-level score reflecting overall epigenetic change, with validation on human embryonic stem cell line H1 and four derived cell lines.