HOMER

Software for motif discovery and ChIP-Seq analysis

This is the old version of the documentation: New Version

ChIP-Seq Analysis: Creating Histograms from High-throughput Sequencing data and Motifs

HOMER can be used to make histograms that document ChIP-Seq library and motif densities relative to specific positions in the genome. This can be done near peaks, subsets of peaks, or near promoters, exon junctions or anywhere else you find interesting. To make histograms, use the annotatePeaks.pl program but add the parameters "-hist <#>" to produce a tab delimited text file that can then be visualized using EXCEL or other data visualization software.

Basic usage:

annotatePeaks.pl <peak file> <genome> -size <#> -hist <#> -d <tag directory 1> [tag directory2] ... -m <motif 1> <motif 2> ... > <output matrix file>

i.e. annotatePeaks.pl ERpeaks.txt hg18 -size 6000 -hist 25 -d MCF7-H3K4me1/ MCF7-H3K4me2/ MCF7-H3K4me3/ > outputfile.txt

Running this command is very similar to creating annotated peak files - in fact, most of the data can be used to make both types of files - hence the reason for combining this functionality in the same command. Be default, HOMER normalizes the output histogram such that the resulting units are per bp per peak, on top of the standard total mapped tag normalization of 10 million tags.

Histograms of Tag Directories:

For each tag directory or motif, HOMER will output 3 columns in the histogram. In the case of tag directories, the first column will indicate ChIP-Fragment Coverage, which is calculated by extending tags by their estimated ChIP-fragment length, and is analogous to the profiles made for the UCSC Genome Browser. The 2nd and 3rd columns report the density of 5' and 3' aligned tags, and are independent of fragment length. For example, lets look at H3K4me2 distribution near Androgen Receptor (AR) peaks before and after 16 hours of treatment with testosterone (dht):

annotatePeaks.pl ARpeaks.txt hg18 -size 4000 -hist 10 -d H3K4me2-control/ H3K4me2-dht-16h/ > outputfile.txt

Opening outputfile.txt with EXCEL, we see:

histogram excel

Graphing columns B and E while using column A for the x-coordinates, we get the following:
historgram H3K4me2 near AR peaks

However, if we graph only the 5' and 3' tags that come from the H3K4me2-dht-16h directory (columns F and G):

histogram of H3K4me2 tags near AR peaks

Here we can see how the 5' and 3' reads from the H3K4me2 marked nucleosomes are distributed near the AR sites.

Histograms of Motif Densities:

Making histograms out of motif occurrences is very similar to ChIP-Seq tag distributions. Run the annotatePeaks.pl program with "-hist <#>" and "-m <motif file>" (you can also find motif densities and tag densities at the same time):

annotatePeaks.pl ARpeaks.txt hg18 -size 1000 -hist 5 -m are.motif fox.motif ap1.motif > outputfile.txt

Graphing outputfile.txt with EXCEL:

Back to ChIP-Seq Analysis

Can't figure something out? Questions, comments, concerns, or other feedback:
cbenner@ucsd.edu