Perspectives of international human epigenome consortium

Abstract

As the International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC) launched officially at the 2010 Washington meeting, a giant step toward the conquest of unexplored regions of the human genome has begun. IHEC aims at the production of 1,000 reference epigenomes to the international scientific community for next 7-10 years. Seven member institutions, including South Korea, Korea National Institute of Health (KNIH), will produce 25-200 reference epigenomes individually, and the produced data will be publically available by using a data center. Epigenome data will cover from whole genome bisulfite sequencing, histone modification, and chromatin access information to miRNA-seq. The final goal of IHEC is the production of reference maps of human epigenomes for key cellular status relevant to health and disease.

Keywords: DNA methylayion; chromatin; histones; methylome; microRNAs.

Fig. 1

Perspectives of epigenome research. MeDIP, methylated DNA immunoprecipitation-sequencing; MIRAseq, methylated CpG island recovery assay-sequencing; iPS, induced pluoripetent stem cell; mC-seq, methylated cytosine-sequencing; CHIA-PET, chromatin interaction analysis using paired end tags; T2D, type 2 diabetes; GWAS, genome-wide association study; ENCODE, Encyclopedia of DNA Element; EWAS, epigenomewide association study; hmC-seq, hydroxyl methyl cytosine-sequencing; IDH, isocitrate dehydrogenase; IHEC, International Human Epigenome Consortium.