MethyLight: a high-throughput assay to measure DNA methylation

TLDR

Cytosine‑5 DNA methylation occurs at CpG dinucleotides in vertebrates, aberrant methylation of CpG islands in human tumors can silence tumor‑suppressor genes, yet existing methods are laborious and rely on manual techniques. The development of high‑throughput technology for DNA methylation analysis would significantly expand our ability to derive molecular information from clinical specimens. This study describes a high‑throughput quantitative methylation assay that utilizes fluorescence‑based real‑time PCR (TaqMan) technology that requires no further manipulations after the PCR step. MethyLight is a highly sensitive, quantitative assay that can detect methylated alleles amid a 10,000‑fold excess of unmethylated DNA, accurately determine methylation prevalence, distinguish mono‑allelic from bi‑allelic MLH1 methylation in colorectal tumors, and thus enables rapid, accurate epigenetic profiling of tumor samples.

Abstract

Cytosine-5 DNA methylation occurs in the context of CpG dinucleotides in vertebrates. Aberrant methylation of CpG islands in human tumors has been shown to cause transcriptional silencing of tumor-suppressor genes. Most methods used to analyze cytosine-5 methylation patterns require cumbersome manual techniques that employ gel electrophoresis, restriction enzyme digestion, radiolabeled dNTPs or hybridization probes. The development of high-throughput technology for the analysis of DNA methylation would significantly expand our ability to derive molecular information from clinical specimens. This study describes a high-throughput quantitative methylation assay that utilizes fluorescence-based real-time PCR (TaqMan) technology that requires no further manipulations after the PCR step. MethyLight is a highly sensitive assay, capable of detecting methylated alleles in the presence of a 10,000-fold excess of unmethylated alleles. The assay is also highly quantitative and can very accurately determine the relative prevalence of a particular pattern of DNA methylation. We show that MethyLight can distinguish between mono-allelic and bi-allelic methylation of the MLH1 mismatch repair gene in human colorectal tumor specimens. The development of this technique should considerably enhance our ability to rapidly and accurately generate epigenetic profiles of tumor samples.