MethylCal: Bayesian calibration of methylation levels
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Bisulfite amplicon sequencing has become the primary choice for single-base methylation quantification of multiple targets in parallel. The main limitation of this technology is a preferential amplification of an allele and strand in the PCR due to methylation state. This effect, known as ‘PCR bias', causes inaccurate estimation of the methylation levels and calibration methods based on standard controls have been proposed to correct for it. Here, we present a Bayesian calibration tool, MethylCal, which can analyse jointly all CpGs within a CpG island (CGI) or a Differentially Methylated Region (DMR), avoiding ‘one-at-a-time' CpG calibration. This enables more precise modeling of the methylation levels observed in the standard controls. It also provides accurate predictions of the methylation levels not considered in the controlled experiment, a feature that is paramount in the derivation of the corrected methylation degree. We tested the proposed method on eight independent assays (two CpG islands and six imprinting DMRs) and demonstrated its benefits, including the ability to detect outliers. We also evaluated MethylCal’s calibration in two practical cases, a clinical diagnostic test on 18 patients potentially affected by Beckwith–Wiedemann syndrome, and 17 individuals with celiac disease. The calibration of the methylation levels obtained by MethylCal allows a clearer identification of patients undergoing loss or gain of methylation in borderline cases and could influence further clinical or treatment decisions.
Date Issued
2019-08-22
Date Acceptance
2019-04-20
Citation
Nucleic Acids Research, 2019, 47 (14), pp.1-14
ISSN
0305-1048
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Start Page
1
End Page
14
Journal / Book Title
Nucleic Acids Research
Volume
47
Issue
14
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which
permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which
permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000483815100003&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
DNA METHYLATION
PCR BIAS
PREDICTION
REGRESSION
INFERENCE
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN e81
Date Publish Online
2019-05-03