Chromes from Chromatin: Sonification of the Epigenome

Abstract

The epigenetic modifications are organized in patterns determining the functional properties of the underlying genome. Such patterns, typically measured by ChIP-seq assays of histone modifications, can be combined and translated into musical scores, summarizing multiple signals into a single waveform. As music is recognized as a universal way to convey meaningful information (1), we wanted to investigate properties of music obtained by sonification of ChIP-seq data. We show that the music produced by such quantitative signals is perceived by human listener as more pleasant than that produced from randomized signals. Moreover, the waveform can be analyzed to predict phenotypic properties, such as differential gene expression.\n\nSignificance StatementMusic is recognized as universal way to communicate emotions and, more in general, meaningful information. Various sources of information can be translated into music or sounds, mostly for recreational purposes. It has been shown that human ear can classify information encoded into sounds. Quantitative genomic features, and in particular epigenetic marks, do represent functional information that is exploited by cells to drive biological processes. We test a method to translate such information into music and we study some properties of the sonificated chromatin marks. We show that not only musical representation of epigenetic marks has intrinsic musicality, but also that differences in musical representation of genomic loci reflect differences of the RNA levels of the underlying genes.