Title: DNA methylation analysis
Speaker: Rachel Edgar
Centre for High-throughput Biology (CHiBi), University of British Columbia
Abstract

link of the background reading: Bock 2012

Abstract

DNA methylation analysis is typically done by comparing the level of methylation at individual CpGs or at CpG dense CpG islands (CpGI) between groups of interest (i.e. cancer vs healthy). Differential methylation studies find anywhere from 0.5-20% of studied CpGs to be significantly differentially methylated. Observed fractions, of CpGs which are differentially methylated, leave many CpGs unchanged between specific samples. Currently there is mounting evidence that the human methylome is generally stable between samples. Stable regions of the human methylome could be of significant biological interest and could also reduce the regions which need to be considered in differential methylation analysis. The potential biological insight and practical use of intersample methylation stability prompted us to undertake a meta-analysis of available human DNA methylation data.