1. Grow 25 ml of Drosophila S2 cells in a T-flask at 25°C in Schneider’s Drosophila medium (Gibco BRL) supplemented with 10% heat inactivated fetal bovine serum to a density of 4~5x10⁶ cells/ml.  (If desired, heat shock the cells by placing the T-flask in a 37°C water bath for 15 minutes.  Support the T-flask horizontally in the water bath so the cells don't become anoxic.  Cool back back to room temperature in a water bath for several minutes before adding formaldehyde.)

2. Formaldehyde crosslinking:

3. Quench the crosslinking by adding 2M glycine to a final concentration of 240 mM (Komarnitsky et al, 2000).

4. Collect cells by centrifugation at 700 x g (SS34 – 3000rpm) for 10 minutes.

5. Resuspend and wash cells with 10 ml cold PBS buffer.  Collect cells by centrifugation at 700 x g for 10 minutes.

6. Resuspend cell pellets in 1 ml of sonication buffer {10mM Tris-HCl pH 8.0, 1mM EDTA, 0.5mM EGTA (Park et al, 2001), supplemented with fresh protease inhibitors as follows: 1ug/ml aprotinin, 1ug/ml pepstatin A, 0.5mM PMSF (Boehm et al, 2003)}.

7. Transfer cell suspension to a 1.5 ml microfuge tube.  Mount tube in an ice/salt bath with the sonicator.  Sonicate 30 cycles: 10 sec. on, 30 sec. off.  Average length of the DNA should be 500 bp.  This can be checked by taking 5 ul of solution, treating with RNase A for 30 min., and running on a gel.

8. Centrifuge at 13,000 rpm at 4 °C for 10 min to remove debris.

9. Transfer supernatant to a 15 ml tube, and mix with an equal amount of 6M urea. (Park et al, 2001; Boehm et al, 2003: this is a significant departure from most protocols but improves signals by as much as 10 fold.)

10. Dialyze overnight in the cold against 200 ml of ChIP buffer (10mM Tris-HCl pH 8.0, 1mM EDTA, 0.5mM EGTA, 0.5mM PMSF, 10% glycerol, 0.1% Na-deoxycholate, 1.0% Triton X-100) (Park et al, 2001; Boehm et al, 2003)

11. Centrifuge to remove debris. Transfer chromatin solution to new tube. It should be around 1.5 ml. (Chromatin solution can be stored at -70°C, but don’t forget the subsequent preclearing step.)

12. Preclear the chromatin solution by adding 80 ul of 50% protein A sepharose beads (suspended in 10 mM Tris-HCl pH 8, 1 mM EDTA, 1 mg/ml BSA and transferred with a pipette whose tip is cut to widen the hole) and mix the solution gently for 30 min at 4 °C. Centrifuge at 13,000 rpm for 5min to remove beads. Transfer supernatants to fresh siliconized tube. (Chromatin solution can be stored in -70°C for future use; it does not require another preclearing although it should be centrifuged to remove insoluble debris.)

* Preparation of 50% protein A sepharose:  Put 100 ul of dry beads in a 2 ml screw cap tube and swell with 1.5 ml of water for at least 15 minutes on a rotator at 4°C.  Collect beads at 2000 rpms for 3’ and discard supernatant.  Resuspend beads in 1.5 ml of water, mix for 5’, and recover beads.  Wash beads 2 times with 1.5 ml of TE.  Estimate the pack volume of beads and add 0.8 volumes of TE and 0.2 volumes of 10 mg/ml acetylated BSA (final BSA concentration should be 1 mg/ml).

13. Determine DNA concentration of chromatin solution using the fluorometer. Around 150 ul of chromatin solution (Calculate the amount of chromatin solution for one I.P. 5~10ug of DNA or 1 X 10⁷ cells is used for one I.P.) will be used for I.P.

14.  Add antibody (4 ul of antiserum against GAGA, DSIF, TBP, TAF250, HSF, and Pol II and 7 ul of antiserum against NELF-B, D and E) to solution and incubate overnight at 4°C. (DSG: smaller amounts might work as these amounts were determined arbitrarily to give good results.)

15. Add 35 ul of 50 % protein A sepharose, and incubate for 2 hr at 4 °C. (DSG: An earlier protocol called for 70 ul which is excessive. A ratio of 5 ul of 50% protein A:1 ul of antiserum should suffice since the binding capacity of protein A sepharose is 20 ug of antibody per 1 ul of protein A separose.)

16. Collect the protein A sepharose beads by brief centrifugation at 3000 rpm for 5 minutes. (Store the supernatants at -70°C in case they are needed in the future)

17. Wash the immunoprecipitates (incubate each wash solution containing the immunoprecipitates at 4 °C for at least 5 minutes and centrifuge at 3000rpm for 5 min.)

18. Elute the protein–DNA complexes by adding 250 ul of Elution Buffer (1% SDS, 0.1M NaHCO₃) and incubating the solution at room temperature for 15 min. Spin-down the beads at 3000 rpm and transfer the supernatants to new tubes. Elute once again with 250 ul of Elution buffer. In addition, prepare input DNA by adding Elution Buffer to 20% input to make final volume 500 ul.

19. Add 20 ul of 5M NaCl to the eluates and incubate at 65°C for 4 hr to reverse formaldehyde crosslinks.

20. Add 10 ul of 0.5 M EDTA, 20 ul of 1M Tris-Cl (pH 6.5), and 2 ul of 10 mg/ml proteinase K and incubate at 45 °C for 1 hr.

21. Phenol/chloroform extract 2 times, ether extract 1 time and evaporate off excess ether.  Add 20ug of linear polyacrylamide, 50 ul of 3M NaOAc, and 1 ml 100% EtOH.  EtOH precipitate as usual.

22. Dissolve DNA pellets in 30 ul of TE for PCR reactions and store at -70°C.