Kelly, KatherineScherer, MichaelBraun, Martina MariaLutsik, PavloPlass, Christoph2025-02-062025-02-062024Kelly K, Scherer M, Braun MM, Lutsik P, Plass C. EpiCHAOS: a metric to quantify epigenomic heterogeneity in single-cell data. Genome Biol. 2024 Dec 3;25(1):305. DOI: 10.1186/s13059-024-03446-w1474-7596http://hdl.handle.net/10230/69509Epigenetic heterogeneity is a fundamental property of biological systems and is recognized as a potential driver of tumor plasticity and therapy resistance. Single-cell epigenomics technologies have been widely employed to study epigenetic variation between-but not within-cellular clusters. We introduce epiCHAOS: a quantitative metric of cell-to-cell heterogeneity, applicable to any single-cell epigenomics data type. After validation in synthetic datasets, we apply epiCHAOS to investigate global and region-specific patterns of epigenetic heterogeneity across diverse biological systems. EpiCHAOS provides an excellent approximation of stemness and plasticity in development and malignancy, making it a valuable addition to single-cell cancer epigenomics analyses.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13059-024-03446-wCancerChromatinDNA methylationEpigeneticsHeterogeneityPlasticitySingle-cell epigenomicsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess