BINOCh: binding inference from nucleosome occupancy changes

Transcription factor binding events are frequently associated with a pattern of nucleosome occupancy changes in which nucleosomes flanking the binding site increase in occupancy, while those in the vicinity of the binding site itself are displaced. Genome-wide information on enhancer proximal nucleosome occupancy can be readily acquired using ChIP-seq targeting enhancer-related histone modifications such as H3K4me2. Here, we present a software package, BINOCh that allows biologists to use such data to infer the identity of key transcription factors that regulate the response of a cell to a stimulus or determine a program of differentiation. The BINOCh open source Python package is freely available at http://liulab.dfci.harvard.edu/BINOCh under the FreeBSD license.