Formaldehyde cross-linking is an important component of many technologies, including chromatin immunoprecipitation and chromosome conformation capture. The procedure remains empirical and poorly characterized, however, despite a long history of its use in research. Little is known about the specificity of in vivo cross-linking, its efficiency and chemical adducts induced by the procedure. It is time to search this black box.
Keywords: 3C; 3D genome organization; ChIP; chromatin; formaldehyde cross-linking.
© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.