Improved detection of methylation in ancient DNA
More On Article
- Creating a brand. Genesis, transformation and diffusion of Qurayyah Painted Ware
- From Hair to Hearing: Genomes Reveal How Great Apes Adapted
- Genomic landscapes of natural selection in great apes
- Targeted chromosomal sequencing of wild bonobos identifies a genetically distinct subpopulation east of the Lomami river.
- The evaluation of facial features as markers of cardiometabolic health in women of post-reproductive age.
Sawyer, S., Gelabert, P., Yakir, B., Llanos-Lizcano, A., Sperduti, A., Bondioli, L., Cheronet, O., Neugebauer-Maresch, C., Teschler-Nicola, M., Novak, M., Pap, I., Szikossy, I., Hajdu, T., Moiseyev, V., Gromov, A., Zariņa, G., Meshorer, E., Carmel, L., Pinhasi, R., 2024. Improved detection of methylation in ancient DNA. Genome Biology 25, 261.
Abstract
Reconstructing premortem DNA methylation levels in ancient DNA has led to breakthrough studies such as the prediction of anatomical features of the Denisovan. These studies rely on computationally inferring methylation levels from damage signals in naturally deaminated cytosines, which requires expensive high-coverage genomes. Here, we test two methods for direct methylation measurement developed for modern DNA based on either bisulfite or enzymatic methylation treatments. Bisulfite treatment shows the least reduction in DNA yields as well as the least biases during methylation conversion, demonstrating that this method can be successfully applied to ancient DNA.