Detecting DNA cytosine methylation using nanopore sequencing.

Simpson, Jared T; Workman, Rachael E; Zuzarte, P C; David, Matei; Dursi, L J; Timp, Winston · Nat Methods · 2017

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

In nanopore sequencing devices, electrolytic current signals are sensitive to base modifications, such as 5-methylcytosine (5-mC). Here we quantified the strength of this effect for the Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION sequencer. By using synthetically methylated DNA, we were able to train a hidden Markov model to distinguish 5-mC from unmethylated cytosine. We applied our method to sequence the methylome of human DNA, without requiring special steps for library preparation.

Medical subject headings