{
  "abstract": "Increased understanding of the functional complexity of the genome has led to growing recognition about the role of epigenetic/transcriptional variation in health and disease. Current analyses of the human brain, however, are limited by the use of “bulk” tissue, comprising a heterogeneous mix of different neural cell types. As epigenetic processes play a critical role in determining cell type-specific patterns of gene regulation it is important to consider cellular composition in regulatory genomic studies of human post-mortem tissue, and there is a need for methods to purify populations of specific cell-types. Furthermore, the valuable nature of human post-mortem tissue means it is important to use methods that maximize the amount of genomic data generated on each sample. This protocol describes a method that uses fluorescence-activated nuclei sorting (FANS) to isolate and profile nuclei from multiple different human brain cell-types from frozen post-mortem tissue. This protocol can be used to robustly purify populations of neuronal (NeuN+ve), oligodendrocytes (SOX10+ve), microglia (IRF8+ve) and other glial origin nuclei (NeuN-ve/SOX10-ve/IRF8-ve) from adult post-mortem frozen brain, with each tissue sample yielding purified populations of nuclei amenable to simultaneous analysis of i) DNA modifications (via bisulfite sequencing / array), ii) histone modifications (CUT&Tag), iii) open chromatin analysis (ATAC-seq), and iv) gene expression (snRNA-seq).",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "University of Exeter , Exeter , UK ;",
    "University of Exeter Medical School",
    "University of Exeter Complex Disease Epige… UK Human Functional G…"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Stefania S S Policicchio"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Barry A. Chioza",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-3546-1726"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Jonathan P. Davies",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9954-1565"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Joe Burrage",
      "orcid": "0009-0002-1567-713X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Jonathan S. Mill",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1115-3224"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Emma Louise Dempster",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1257-5314"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/1gj17bg4ghbm0.bib",
  "cited_by": 9,
  "doi": "10.17504/protocols.io.36wgq4965vk5/v3",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "1gj17bg4ghbm0",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.36wgq4965vk5/v3",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "1312|Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W3093377464",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.protocols.io/view/fluorescence-activated-nuclei-sorting-fans-on-huma-j2tbcqeip.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-05-27",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/1gj17bg4ghbm0.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T13:26:46Z",
      "native_id": "W3093377464",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.36wgq4965vk5/v3"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biochemistry",
      "origin": "openalex:1312|Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics",
      "subfield": "molecular-biology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Fluorescence-activated nuclei sorting (FANS) on human post-mortem cortex tissue enabling the isolation of distinct neural cell populations for multiple omic profiling v2",
  "title_text": "Fluorescence-activated nuclei sorting (FANS) on human post-mortem cortex tissue enabling the isolation of distinct neural cell populations for multiple omic profiling v2",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-03T13:20:30Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/1gj17bg4ghbm0",
  "venue": null,
  "versions": []
}