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Detecting DNA cytosine methylation using nanopore sequencing

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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.

Authors: Jared T Simpson, Rachael Workman, Philip C Zuzarte, Matei David, Lewis Jonathan Dursi, Winston Timp
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  • Published on: February 20 2017
  • Source: Nature Methods

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