Genome-wide profiling of histone modifications in Plasmodium falciparum using CUT&RUN

We recently adapted a CUT&RUN protocol for genome-wide profiling of chromatin modifications in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium. Using the step-by-step protocol described below, we were able to generate high-quality profiles of multiple histone modifications using only a small fraction of the cells required for ChIP-seq. Using antibodies against two commonly profiled histone modifications, H3K4me3 and H3K9me3, we show here that CUT&RUN profiling is highly reproducible and closely recapitulates previously published ChIP-seq-based abundance profiles of histone marks. Finally, we show that CUT&RUN requires substantially lower sequencing coverage for accurate profiling compared with ChIP-seq.

Automated summary

We adapted a CUT&RUN protocol for profiling chromatin modifications in Plasmodium, a human malaria parasite. Using a step-by-step protocol, we obtained high-quality profiles of histone modifications with a small fraction of cells compared to ChIP-seq. The CUT&RUN profiling showed high reproducibility and closely matched ChIP-seq-based profiles of histone marks. Furthermore, CUT&RUN required lower sequencing coverage for accurate profiling compared to ChIP-seq.