The establishment and maintenance of chromatin states involves multiscale dynamic processes integrating transcription factor and multiprotein effector dynamics, cycles of chemical chromatin modifications, and chromatin structural organization. Recent developments in genomic technologies are emerging that are enabling a view beyond ensemble- and time-averaged properties and are revealing the importance of dynamic chromatin states for cell fate decisions, differentiation and reprogramming at the single-cell level. Concurrently, biochemical and single-molecule methodologies are providing key insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms. Combining results from defined in vitro and single-molecule studies with single-cell genomic approaches thus holds great promise for understanding chromatin-based transcriptional memory and cell fate. In this Review, we discuss recent developments in biochemical, single-molecule biophysical and single-cell genomic technologies and review how the findings from these approaches can be integrated to paint a comprehensive picture of dynamic chromatin states.

染色质状态的建立和维持涉及整合转录因子和多蛋白效应子动力学，化学染色质修饰循环和染色质结构组织的多尺度动态过程。基因组技术的最新发展正在出现，它们使人们能够获得超越集合平均和时间平均性质的视图，并揭示了动态染色质状态对于单细胞水平的细胞命运决定，分化和重编程的重要性。同时，生化和单分子方法正在提供对潜在分子机制的关键见解。结合体外定义的结果因此，利用单细胞基因组方法进行单分子研究以及对基于染色质的转录记忆和细胞命运的了解都具有广阔的前景。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了生化，单分子生物物理和单细胞基因组技术的最新发展，并回顾了如何将这些方法的发现整合起来，以绘制出动态染色质状态的全貌。