The CHH motif in sugar beet satellite DNA: a modulator for cytosine methylation

Methylation of DNA is important for the epigenetic silencing of repetitive DNA in plant genomes. Knowledge about the cytosine methylation status of satellite DNAs, a major class of repetitive DNA, is scarce. One reason for this is that arrays of tandemly arranged sequences are usually collapsed in next‐generation sequencing assemblies. We applied strategies to overcome this limitation and quantified the level of cytosine methylation and its pattern in three satellite families of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) which differ in their abundance, chromosomal localization and monomer size. We visualized methylation levels along pachytene chromosomes with respect to small satellite loci at maximum resolution using chromosome‐wide fluorescent in situ hybridization complemented with immunostaining and super‐resolution microscopy. Only reduced methylation of many satellite arrays was obtained. To investigate methylation at the nucleotide level we performed bisulfite sequencing of 1569 satellite sequences. We found that the level of methylation of cytosine strongly depends on the sequence context: cytosines in the CHH motif show lower methylation (44–52%), while CG and CHG motifs are more strongly methylated. This affects the overall methylation of satellite sequences because CHH occurs frequently while CG and CHG are rare or even absent in the satellite arrays investigated. Evidently, CHH is the major target for modulation of the cytosine methylation level of adjacent monomers within individual arrays and contributes to their epigenetic function. This strongly indicates that asymmetric cytosine methylation plays a role in the epigenetic modification of satellite repeats in plant genomes.     

Detection of Cytosine Methylation in Ancient DNA from Five Native American Populations Using Bisulfite Sequencing

While cytosine methylation has been widely studied in extant populations, relatively few studies have analyzed methylation in ancient DNA. Most existing studies of epigenetic marks in ancient DNA have inferred patterns of methylation in highly degraded samples using post-mortem damage to cytosines as a proxy for cytosine methylation levels. However, this approach limits the inference of methylation compared with direct bisulfite sequencing, the current gold standard for analyzing cytosine methylation at single nucleotide resolution. In this study, we used direct bisulfite sequencing to assess cytosine methylation in ancient DNA from the skeletal remains of 30 Native Americans ranging in age from approximately 230 to 4500 years before present. Unmethylated cytosines were converted to uracils by treatment with sodium bisulfite, bisulfite products of a CpG-rich retrotransposon were pyrosequenced, and C-to-T ratios were quantified for a single CpG position. We found that cytosine methylation is readily recoverable from most samples, given adequate preservation of endogenous nuclear DNA. In addition, our results indicate that the precision of cytosine methylation estimates is inversely correlated with aDNA preservation, such that samples of low DNA concentration show higher variability in measures of percent methylation than samples of high DNA concentration. In particular, samples in this study with a DNA concentration above 0.015 ng/μL generated the most consistent measures of cytosine methylation. This study presents evidence of cytosine methylation in a large collection of ancient human remains, and indicates that it is possible to analyze epigenetic patterns in ancient populations using direct bisulfite sequencing approaches.     

Bismark: a flexible aligner and methylation caller for Bisulfite-Seq applications

SUMMARY: A combination of bisulfite treatment of DNA and high-throughput sequencing (BS-Seq) can capture a snapshot of a cell's epigenomic state by revealing its genome-wide cytosine methylation at single base resolution. Bismark is a flexible tool for the time-efficient analysis of BS-Seq data which performs both read mapping and methylation calling in a single convenient step. Its output discriminates between cytosines in CpG, CHG and CHH context and enables bench scientists to visualize and interpret their methylation data soon after the sequencing run is completed. Availability and implementation: Bismark is released under the GNU GPLv3+ licence. The source code is freely available from www.bioinformatics.bbsrc.ac.uk/projects/bismark/.     

Kismeth: Analyzer of plant methylation states through bisulfite sequencing

Background  

There is great interest in probing the temporal and spatial patterns of cytosine methylation states in genomes of a variety of organisms. It is hoped that this will shed light on the biological roles of DNA methylation in the epigenetic control of gene expression. Bisulfite sequencing refers to the treatment of isolated DNA with sodium bisulfite to convert unmethylated cytosine to uracil, with PCR converting the uracil to thymidine followed by sequencing of the resultant DNA to detect DNA methylation. For the study of DNA methylation, plants provide an excellent model system, since they can tolerate major changes in their DNA methylation patterns and have long been studied for the effects of DNA methylation on transposons and epimutations. However, in contrast to the situation in animals, there aren't many tools that analyze bisulfite data in plants, which can exhibit methylation of cytosines in a variety of sequence contexts (CG, CHG, and CHH).     

Enhanced Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing for Assessment of DNA Methylation at Base Pair Resolution

DNA methylation pattern mapping is heavily studied in normal and diseased tissues. A variety of methods have been established to interrogate the cytosine methylation patterns in cells. Reduced representation of whole genome bisulfite sequencing was developed to detect quantitative base pair resolution cytosine methylation patterns at GC-rich genomic loci. This is accomplished by combining the use of a restriction enzyme followed by bisulfite conversion. Enhanced Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing (ERRBS) increases the biologically relevant genomic loci covered and has been used to profile cytosine methylation in DNA from human, mouse and other organisms. ERRBS initiates with restriction enzyme digestion of DNA to generate low molecular weight fragments for use in library preparation. These fragments are subjected to standard library construction for next generation sequencing. Bisulfite conversion of unmethylated cytosines prior to the final amplification step allows for quantitative base resolution of cytosine methylation levels in covered genomic loci. The protocol can be completed within four days. Despite low complexity in the first three bases sequenced, ERRBS libraries yield high quality data when using a designated sequencing control lane. Mapping and bioinformatics analysis is then performed and yields data that can be easily integrated with a variety of genome-wide platforms. ERRBS can utilize small input material quantities making it feasible to process human clinical samples and applicable in a range of research applications. The video produced demonstrates critical steps of the ERRBS protocol.     

Bisprimer--a program for the design of primers for bisulfite-based genomic sequencing of both plant and Mammalian DNA samples

Plants and animals differ in the sequence context of the methylated sites in DNA. Plants exhibit cytosine methylation in CG, CHG, and CHH sites, whereas CG methylation is the only form present in mammals (with an exception of the early embryonic development). This fact must be taken into account in the design of primers for bisulfite-based genomic sequencing because CHG and CHH sites can remain unmodified. Surprisingly, no user-friendly primer design program is publicly available that could be used to design primers in plants and to simultaneously check the properties of primers such as the potential for primer-dimer formation. For studies concentrating on particular DNA loci, the correct design of primers is crucial. The program, called BisPrimer, includes 2 different subprograms for the primer design, the first one for mammals and the second one for angiosperm plants. Each subprogram is divided into 2 variants. The first variant serves to design primers that preferentially bind to the bisulfite-modified primer-binding sites (C to U conversion). This type of primer preferentially amplifies the bisulfite-converted DNA strands. This feature can help to avoid problems connected with an incomplete bisulfite modification that can sometimes occur for technical reasons. The second variant is intended for the analysis of samples that are supposed to consist of a mixture of DNA molecules that have different levels of cytosine methylation (e.g., pollen DNA). In this case, the aim is to minimize the selection in favor of either less methylated or more methylated molecules.     

Evidence for non-CpG methylation in mammals

In mammals, the existence of cytosine methylation on non-CpG sequences is controversial. Here, we adapted a LuminoMetric-based Assay (LUMA) to determine global non-CpG methylation levels in rodent and human tissues. We observed that < 1% cytosines in non-CpG motifs were methylated in 3T3-L1 fibroblasts, whereas 7–13% cytosines in non-CpG motifs were methylated in mouse tissues or embryonic fibroblasts. Analysis of cytosine methylation in human, rat, and mouse tissues by bisulfite sequencing revealed non-CpG methylation levels up to 7.5% of all non-CpG cytosines. These levels dropped to 1.5% when a second round of PCR was performed prior to bisulfite sequencing, providing an explanation for the common underestimation of non-CpG methylation levels. Collectively, our results provide evidence that non-CpG methylation exists at substantial levels in mammals.     

Advanced methylome analysis after bisulfite deep sequencing: an example in Arabidopsis

Deep sequencing after bisulfite conversion (BS-Seq) is the method of choice to generate whole genome maps of cytosine methylation at single base-pair resolution. Its application to genomic DNA of Arabidopsis flower bud tissue resulted in the first complete methylome, determining a methylation rate of 6.7% in this tissue. BS-Seq reads were mapped onto an in silico converted reference genome, applying the so-called 3-letter genome method. Here, we present BiSS (Bisufite Sequencing Scorer), a new method applying Smith-Waterman alignment to map bisulfite-converted reads to a reference genome. In addition, we introduce a comprehensive adaptive error estimate that accounts for sequencing errors, erroneous bisulfite conversion and also wrongly mapped reads. The re-analysis of the Arabidopsis methylome data with BiSS mapped substantially more reads to the genome. As a result, it determines the methylation status of an extra 10% of cytosines and estimates the methylation rate to be 7.7%. We validated the results by individual traditional bisulfite sequencing for selected genomic regions. In addition to predicting the methylation status of each cytosine, BiSS also provides an estimate of the methylation degree at each genomic site. Thus, BiSS explores BS-Seq data more extensively and provides more information for downstream analysis.     

High-Speed Conversion of Cytosine to Uracil in Bisulfite Genomic Sequencing Analysis of DNA Methylation

Bisulfite genomic sequencing is a widely used technique foranalyzing cytosine-methylation of DNA. By treating DNA withbisulfite, cytosine residues are deaminated to uracil, whileleaving 5-methylcytosine largely intact. Subsequent PCR andnucleotide sequence analysis permit unequivocal determinationof the methylation status at cytosine residues. A major caveatassociated with the currently practiced procedure is that ittakes 16–20 hr for completion of the conversion of cytosineto uracil. Here we report that a complete deamination of cytosineto uracil can be achieved in shorter periods by using a highlyconcentrated bisulfite solution at an elevated temperature.Time course experiments demonstrated that treating DNA with9 M bisulfite for 20 min at 90°C or 40 min at 70°C allcytosine residues in the DNA were converted to uracil. Underthese conditions, the majority of 5-methylcytosines remainedintact. When a high molecular weight DNA derived from a cellline (containing a number of genes whose methylation statuswas known) was treated with bisulfite under the above conditionsand amplified and sequenced, the results obtained were consistentwith those reported in the literature. Although some degradationof DNA occurred during this process, the amount of treated DNArequired for the amplification was nearly equal to that requiredfor the conventional bisulfite genomic sequencing procedure.The increased speed of DNA methylation analysis with this novelprocedure is expected to advance various aspects of DNA sciences.     

The bisulfite genomic sequencing used in the analysis of epigenetic states, a technique in the emerging environmental genotoxicology research

Methylation at position 5 of cytosine in DNA is an important event in epigenetic changes of cells, the methylation being linked to the control of gene functions. The DNA methylation can be analyzed by bisulfite genomic sequencing, and a large body of data have now been accumulated, based on which causation of diseases, for example cancer, and many other manifestations of cellular activities have been discussed intensively. This article gives an extensive account of the chemical aspects of bisulfite modification of cytosine and 5-methylcytosine in DNA. Various factors that affect the action of bisulfite are discussed, and a recent progress from our laboratory is explained. Conventional procedures for the bisulfite treatment consist incubation of single-stranded DNA with sodium bisulfite under acidic conditions. This treatment converts cytosine into uracil, but 5-methylcytosine remains unchanged. Amplification by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of the bisulfite-treated DNA followed by sequencing can result in revealing the positions of 5-methylcytosine in the gene. We have discovered that the whole procedure can be significantly speeded up by the use of a highly concentrated bisulfite solution, 10 M ammonium bisulfite. Another recent finding is that urea, which has been often added to the reaction mixture with the purpose of facilitating the bisulfite-mediated deamination of cytosine in DNA, may not work as anticipated: we have observed that urea does not show such promoting actions in our treatments of DNA. A laboratory protocol for quantifying bisulfite, suitably simple for routine practice to ensure valid experiments, is described.     

CpG_MPs: identification of CpG methylation patterns of genomic regions from high-throughput bisulfite sequencing data

High-throughput bisulfite sequencing is widely used to measure cytosine methylation at single-base resolution in eukaryotes. It permits systems-level analysis of genomic methylation patterns associated with gene expression and chromatin structure. However, methods for large-scale identification of methylation patterns from bisulfite sequencing are lacking. We developed a comprehensive tool, CpG_MPs, for identification and analysis of the methylation patterns of genomic regions from bisulfite sequencing data. CpG_MPs first normalizes bisulfite sequencing reads into methylation level of CpGs. Then it identifies unmethylated and methylated regions using the methylation status of neighboring CpGs by hotspot extension algorithm without knowledge of pre-defined regions. Furthermore, the conservatively and differentially methylated regions across paired or multiple samples (cells or tissues) are identified by combining a combinatorial algorithm with Shannon entropy. CpG_MPs identified large amounts of genomic regions with different methylation patterns across five human bisulfite sequencing data during cellular differentiation. Different sequence features and significantly cell-specific methylation patterns were observed. These potentially functional regions form candidate regions for functional analysis of DNA methylation during cellular differentiation. CpG_MPs is the first user-friendly tool for identifying methylation patterns of genomic regions from bisulfite sequencing data, permitting further investigation of the biological functions of genome-scale methylation patterns.     

BSMAP: whole genome bisulfite sequence MAPping program

Background  

Bisulfite sequencing is a powerful technique to study DNA cytosine methylation. Bisulfite treatment followed by PCR amplification specifically converts unmethylated cytosines to thymine. Coupled with next generation sequencing technology, it is able to detect the methylation status of every cytosine in the genome. However, mapping high-throughput bisulfite reads to the reference genome remains a great challenge due to the increased searching space, reduced complexity of bisulfite sequence, asymmetric cytosine to thymine alignments, and multiple CpG heterogeneous methylation.     

Microsoft Word macro for analysis of cytosine methylation by the bisulfite deamination reaction

Cytosine methylation at CpG dinucleotides is an important control mechanism in development, differentiation, and neoplasia. Bisulfite genomic sequencing and its modifications have been developed to examine methylation at these CpG dinucleotides. To use these methods, one has to (i) manually convert the sequence to that produced by bisulfite conversion and PCR amplification, taking into account that cytosine residues at CpG dinucleotides may or may not be converted depending on their methylation status, (ii) identify relevant restriction sites that may be used for methylation analysis, and (iii) conduct similar steps with the other DNA strand since the two strands of DNA are no longer complementary after bisulfite conversion. To automate these steps, we have developed a macro that can be used with Microsoft Word. This macro (i) converts genomic sequence to modified sequence that would result after bisulfite treatment facilitating primer design for bisulfite genomic sequencing and methylation-sensitive PCR assay and (ii) identifies restriction sites that are preserved in bisulfite-converted and PCR-amplified product only if cytosine residues at relevant CpG dinucleotides are methylated (and thereby not converted to uracil) in the genomic DNA.     

Maize chromomethylase Zea methyltransferase2 is required for CpNpG methylation

A cytosine DNA methyltransferase containing a chromodomain, Zea methyltransferase2 (Zmet2), was cloned from maize. The sequence of ZMET2 is similar to that of the Arabidopsis chromomethylases CMT1 and CMT3, with C-terminal motifs characteristic of eukaryotic and prokaryotic DNA methyltransferases. We used a reverse genetics approach to determine the function of the Zmet2 gene. Plants homozygous for a Mutator transposable element insertion into motif IX had a 13% reduction in methylated cytosines. DNA gel blot analysis of these plants with methylation-sensitive restriction enzymes and bisulfite sequencing of a 180-bp knob sequence showed reduced methylation only at CpNpG sites. No reductions in methylation were observed at CpG or asymmetric sites in heterozygous or homozygous mutant plants. Our research shows that chromomethylase Zmet2 is required for in vivo methylation of CpNpG sequences.     

DNA methylation in mouse A-repeats in DNA methyltransferase-knockout ES cells and in normal cells determined by bisulfite genomic sequencing

Mouse ES cells with a null mutation of the known DNA methyltransferase retain some residual DNA methylation and can methylate foreign sequences de novo. We have used bisulfite genomic sequencing to examine the sequence specificity and distributions of methylation of a hypermethylated CG island sequence, mouse A-repeats. There were 13 CG dinucleotides in the region examined, 12 of which were methylated to variable extents in all DNAs. We found that: (1) there is considerable residual DNA methylation in ES cells lacking the known DNA methyltransferase (29% of normal methylation in the complete knockout ES DNA); (2) this other activity methylates at exactly the same CG sites as the major methyltransferase; and (3) differences in the distribution of methylated sites between A-repeats in these DNAs are consistent with this other activity methylating in a random de novo fashion. Also, the lack of any methylation in non-CG sites argues that, in other studies where non-CG methylation sites have been found by bisulfite sequencing, detection of such sites of non-CG methylation is not an inherent artifact in this methodology.     

铜胁迫对不同抗性种群海州香薷酸性转化酶基因启动子甲基化的影响

采用亚硫酸氢盐测序技术,检测了Cu胁迫对海州香薷（Elsholtzia haichowensis Sun） Cu抗性和非抗性种群酸性转化酶基因启动子甲基化的影响。结果表明,海州香薷液泡转化酶基因（vINV）和细胞壁转化酶基因（cwINV）的启动子在CG位点分别表现出超甲基化和低甲基化的现象。酸性转化酶基因启动子CHG和CHH位点的甲基化状态受Cu胁迫影响较大。Cu胁迫下,vINV和cwINV启动子分别有1个CHG和6个CHH位点的甲基化状态在Cu抗性种群和非抗性种群之间表现出较大差异。抗Cu种群中这些甲基化差异位点对Cu胁迫不敏感,但在非抗性种群中这些位点的甲基化水平在Cu胁迫后出现大幅上升或下降。有些甲基化差异位点位于或者临近预测的启动子顺式作用元件区域,可能参与Cu胁迫下酸性转化酶基因的表达调控。     

Chemoenzymatic labeling of DNA methylation patterns for single-molecule epigenetic mapping

DNA methylation, specifically, methylation of cytosine (C) nucleotides at the 5-carbon position (5-mC), is the most studied and significant epigenetic modification. Here we developed a chemoenzymatic procedure to fluorescently label non-methylated cytosines in CpG context, allowing epigenetic profiling of single DNA molecules spanning hundreds of thousands of base pairs. We used a CpG methyltransferase with a synthetic S-adenosyl-l-methionine cofactor analog to transfer an azide to cytosines instead of the natural methyl group. A fluorophore was then clicked onto the DNA, reporting on the amount and position of non-methylated CpGs. We found that labeling efficiency was increased up to 2-fold by the addition of a nucleosidase, presumably by degrading the inactive by-product of the cofactor after labeling, preventing its inhibitory effect. We used the method to determine the decline in global DNA methylation in a chronic lymphocytic leukemia patient and then performed whole-genome methylation mapping of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Our genome maps show high concordance with published bisulfite sequencing methylation maps. Although mapping resolution is limited by optical detection to 500–1000 bp, the labeled DNA molecules produced by this approach are hundreds of thousands of base pairs long, allowing access to long repetitive and structurally variable genomic regions.     

Single-molecule and population probing of chromatin structure using DNA methyltransferases

Probing chromatin structure with DNA methyltransferases offers advantages over more commonly used nuclease-based and chromatin immunoprecipitation methods for detection of nucleosomes and non-histone protein-DNA interactions. Here, we describe two related methods in which the readout of MTase accessibility is obtained by assaying 5-methylcytosine in DNA through the PCR-based technique of bisulfite genomic sequencing. The methyltransferase accessibility protocol (MAP) determines the relative frequency at which the enzyme accesses each of its target sites over an entire population of PCR amplified product. While MAP yields much quantitative information about relative accessibility of a region of chromatin, a complementary single-molecule view of methyltransferase accessibility, termed MAP for individual templates (MAP-IT), is provided by analysis of cloned PCR products. Absolute rather than relative methylation frequencies in a region are obtained by summing the methylation status at each site over a cohort of clones. Moreover, as the integrity of individual molecules is maintained in MAP-IT, unique information about the distribution of multiple footprints along continuous regions is gleaned. In principle, the population MAP and single-molecule MAP-IT strategies can be used to analyze chromatin structure in a variety of model systems. Here, we describe the application of MAP in living Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells and MAP-IT in the analysis of a mammalian tumor suppressor gene in nuclei. This application of MAP-IT provides the first means to simultaneously determine CpG methylation of mammalian genes and their overlying chromatin structure in the same single DNA molecule.