Annotation consistency : ChIP experiments

Summary

ChIP assays can provide evidence for protein localization to "chromatin" (or a child term).

In vivo ChIP experiments do not usually provide sufficient evidence for a protein-DNA interaction because it does not demonstrate whether the interaction is direct. This can only be used when the authors are basing their experiments based on the hypothesis that the protein directly binds DNA, for example if the protein has a known DNA binding motif.

Useful papers

Collas (2010) review describes suitable controls required for ChIP and points out that ChIP has become the technique of choice for mapping DNA–protein interactions in the cell, identifying novel binding sites for transcription factors or other chromatin-associated proteins, mapping the localization of post-translationally modified histones and mapping the localization of histone variants.

Review Status

Last reviewed: July 19th, 2023

Reviewed by: Pascale Gaudet, Ruth Lovering