08 March 2012: ITFoM-supported publication: Methylome analysis using MeDIP-seq with low DNA concentrations (Nature, S. Beck)
The article is co-authored by some of the ITFoM-Project Partners and published in the Nature Protocols.
DNA methylation is an epigenetic mark that has a crucial role in many biological processes. To understand the functional consequences of DNA methylation on phenotypic plasticity, a genome-wide analysis should be embraced. This in turn requires a technique that balances accuracy, genome coverage, resolution and cost, yet is low in DNA input in order to minimize the drain on precious samples. Methylated DNA immunoprecipitation-sequencing (MeDIP-seq) fulfils these criteria, combining MeDIP with massively parallel DNA sequencing. Here we report an improved protocol using 100-fold less genomic DNA than that commonly used. We show comparable results for specificity (>97%) and enrichment (>100-fold) over a wide range of DNA concentrations (5,000-50 ng) and demonstrate the utility of the protocol for the generation of methylomes from rare bone marrow cells using 160-300 ng of starting DNA. The protocol described here, i.e., DNA extraction to generation of MeDIP-seq library, can be completed within 3-5 d.
DNA methylation is an epigenetic mark that has a crucial role in many biological processes. To understand the functional consequences of DNA methylation on phenotypic plasticity, a genome-wide analysis should be embraced. This in turn requires a technique that balances accuracy, genome coverage, resolution and cost, yet is low in DNA input in order to minimize the drain on precious samples. Methylated DNA immunoprecipitation-sequencing (MeDIP-seq) fulfils these criteria, combining MeDIP with massively parallel DNA sequencing. Here we report an improved protocol using 100-fold less genomic DNA than that commonly used. We show comparable results for specificity (>97%) and enrichment (>100-fold) over a wide range of DNA concentrations (5,000-50 ng) and demonstrate the utility of the protocol for the generation of methylomes from rare bone marrow cells using 160-300 ng of starting DNA. The protocol described here, i.e., DNA extraction to generation of MeDIP-seq library, can be completed within 3-5 d.
The full article can be accessed here.