Fig. 1: Identification of transcriptionally relevant chromatin accessibility changes that arise during aging in wild-type animals and in animals with reduced insulin/IGF-like signaling (IIS).

a Workflow. ATAC-seq and mRNA-seq experiments were conducted on eri-1(mg366), daf-2(e1370); eri-1(mg366), and glp-4(bn2) C. elegans at the indicated timepoints. Data preprocessing and downstream analyses were performed with the pipeline Cactus²⁵. The ATAC-seq data revealed differentially accessible regions (DARs), while the mRNA-seq data revealed differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the investigated conditions. Eventually, both datasets were combined to identify DARs causing correlating gene expression changes at their closest genes (i.e. DARs that open and where the closest gene is upregulated or DARs that close and where the closest gene is repressed) (trDARs). Created in BioRender. Riedel, C. (2025) https://BioRender.com/iqifhdy. b Venn diagrams showing overlaps between DEGs and the genes proximal to DARs. c Heatmap showing the overlap of trDARs throughout the genome between the indicated conditions. Note: “x > y” refers to regions that are open in x and closed in y, while “x <y” refers to regions that are closed in x and open in y. d Heatmap showing the enrichment of all trDARs in different chromatin states, adapted from ref. ²⁶. Note: “x > y” refers to regions that are open in x and closed in y, while “x < y" refers to regions that are closed in x and open in y. e Heatmap showing the overlap of distNC-localized trDARs between the indicated conditions. Note: “x > y” refers to regions that are open in x and closed in y, while “x < y” refers to regions that are closed in x and open in y. f Barplot showing a functional enrichment analysis of the genes proximal to distNC-localized trDARs that open under reduced IIS. Some terms were adapted or shortened for improved readability (see Supplementary Table S7 for the original terms). trDARs transcriptionally-relevant differentially accessible regions, day1, day3, and day7: age of the adult glp-4 mutants, WT: eri-1(mg366), daf-2: daf-2(e1370); eri-1(mg366), glp-4: glp-4(bn2), distNC distal non-coding, PcG Polycomb Group, FDR False Discovery Rate, GO-BP Gene Ontology-Biological Processes. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.