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Sensitive and reproducible cell-free methylome quantification with synthetic spike-in controls.

ABSTRACT: Cell-free methylated DNA immunoprecipitation sequencing (cfMeDIP-seq) identifies genomic regions with DNA methylation, using a protocol adapted to work with low-input DNA samples and with cell-free DNA (cfDNA). We developed a set of synthetic spike-in DNA controls for cfMeDIP-seq to provide a simple and inexpensive reference for quantitative normalization. We designed 54 DNA fragments with combinations of methylation status (methylated and unmethylated), fragment length (80 bp, 160 bp, 320 bp), G + C content (35%, 50%, 65%), and fraction of CpG dinucleotides within the fragment (1/80 bp, 1/40 bp, 1/20 bp). Using 0.01 ng of spike-in controls enables training a generalized linear model that absolutely quantifies methylated cfDNA in MeDIP-seq experiments. It mitigates batch effects and corrects for biases in enrichment due to known biophysical properties of DNA fragments and other technical biases.

SUBMITTER: Wilson SL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9499995 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Sensitive and reproducible cell-free methylome quantification with synthetic spike-in controls.

Wilson Samantha L SL Shen Shu Yi SY Harmon Lauren L Burgener Justin M JM Triche Tim T Bratman Scott V SV De Carvalho Daniel D DD Hoffman Michael M MM

Cell reports methods 20220909 9

Cell-free methylated DNA immunoprecipitation sequencing (cfMeDIP-seq) identifies genomic regions with DNA methylation, using a protocol adapted to work with low-input DNA samples and with cell-free DNA (cfDNA). We developed a set of synthetic spike-in DNA controls for cfMeDIP-seq to provide a simple and inexpensive reference for quantitative normalization. We designed 54 DNA fragments with combinations of methylation status (methylated and unmethylated), fragment length (80 bp, 160 bp, 320 bp), ...[more]

PMID: 36160046

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Project description:Background.The cell-free methylated DNA immunoprecipitation-sequencing (cfMeDIP-seq) method, is adapted to work with low input DNA and with circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA). This method allowsfor epigenetic profiling from liquid biopsy samples, providing potential information about tissue of origin. Similar to classical immunoprecipitation based enrichment protocols, interpretation requires a referenceor control to draw inference against a composite experimental baseline and against designed standards allowing for cross-experiment comparisons. Methods.To meet the need for a reference control in cfMeDIP-seqexperiments, we designed spike-in controlsand integrated the use of unique molecular index (UMI) to adjust for polymerase chain reaction (PCR)bias, and immunoprecipitation bias caused by the fragment length, G+C content, and CpG density ofthe DNA fragments. This enables for absolute quantification of methylated DNA in picomoles, while retaining epigenomic information that allows for sensitive, tissue-specific detection as well as comparableresults between different experiments. We designed 54 DNA fragments with combinations of methylationstatus (methylated and unmethylated), fragment length in base pair (bp) (80 bp,160 bp,320 bp), G+C content (35%,50%,65%), and fraction of CpGs within a fragment (1/80 bp,1/40 bp,1/20 bp). We checked spike-in control DNA sequence to ensure they had no cross alignment to the human genome and minimized formation of secondary structures to avoid issues with amplification. We carried outcfMeDIP-seq on either solely spike-in DNA fragments, spike-in DNA added to sheared HCT116 genomic DNA or spike-inDNA added tocfDNAfrom acute myeloid leukemia (AML) samples to assess technical and biological biases, determine optimal amount of spike-in DNA required for an experiment and to assess batch effects,respectively. Results. We show thatcfMeDIP-seqenriches for highly methylated regions, with less than 0.01%non-specific binding and preference to high G+C content and CpG fraction DNA fragments. The use of 0.01 ngof spike-in control DNA results in sufficient sequencing reads to adjust for variance due to fragment length,G+C content and CpG fraction without negatively impacting the number of sequencing reads generatedfor each sample. With known amount of each spike-in control, we generated a generalized linear modelthat can absolutely quantify molar amount from read counts while adjusting for fragment length, G+C content, and CpG fraction. Using our spike-in controls, we show that we can greatly mitigate batch effects,reducing batch associated variance in the data to ≤5%of the total variance. Conclusions.The incorporation of spike-in controls allows for easier interpretation of data generated from cfMeDIP-seq and MeDIP-seq experiments when compared to relative read count. Through the use of a generalized linear model tailored to each experiment, molar amount for each genomic region can becalculated, greatly mitigating both biological and technical biases in the data. We have created an Rpackage, spiky, to convert read counts to DNA picomoles while adjusting for fragment length, G+C contentand CpG fraction.

Project description:Microbiome studies have the common goal of determining which microbial taxa are present, respond to specific conditions, or promote phenotypic changes in the host. Most of these studies rely on relative abundance measurements to drive conclusions. Inherent limitations of relative values are the inability to determine whether an individual taxon is more or less abundant and the magnitude of this change between the two samples. These limitations can be overcome by using absolute abundance quantifications, which can allow for a more complete understanding of community dynamics by measuring variations in total microbial loads. Obtaining absolute abundance measurements is still technically challenging. Here, we developed synthetic DNA (synDNA) spike-ins that enable precise and cost-effective absolute quantification of microbiome data by adding defined amounts of synDNAs to the samples. We designed 10 synDNAs with the following features: 2,000-bp length, variable GC content (26, 36, 46, 56, or 66% GC), and negligible identity to sequences found in the NCBI database. Dilution pools were generated by mixing the 10 synDNAs at different concentrations. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing showed that the pools of synDNAs with different percentages of GC efficiently reproduced the serial dilution, showing high correlation (r = 0.96; R2 ≥ 0.94) and significance (P < 0.01). Furthermore, we demonstrated that the synDNAs can be used as DNA spike-ins to generate linear models and predict with high accuracy the absolute number of bacterial cells in complex microbial communities. IMPORTANCE The synDNAs designed in this study enable accurate and reproducible measurements of absolute amount and fold changes of bacterial species in complex microbial communities. The method proposed here is versatile and promising as it can be applied to bacterial communities or genomic features like genes and operons, in addition to being easily adaptable by other research groups at a low cost. We also made the synDNAs' sequences and the plasmids available to encourage future application of the proposed method in the study of microbial communities.

Dataset Information

Sensitive and reproducible cell-free methylome quantification with synthetic spike-in controls.

Publications

Sensitive and reproducible cell-free methylome quantification with synthetic spike-in controls.

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