Epigenetic Profiling
Epigenetic modification, particularly methylation of DNA, is associated with events such as gene silencing, imprinting and the maintenance of genome integrity. The distribution of methylation in the genome is not random, and patterns of methylated and unmethylated DNA are well regulated during normal development. Existing methods for the identification of DNA methylation patterns are limited and call for new approaches, where fast and reliable results for any CpG site can be obtained.
Geniom combines high-throughput with high-resolution.
The Geniom technology allows for a detailed analysis of the methylation pattern of a multitude of individual CpG islands, thus providing high-throughput at a single-base resolution. Use the flexibility of the Geniom system to design your custom microarray, containing probes for every CpG within any region of interest.
The basic approach for uncovering the methylation status starts with a bisulfite treatment of sample DNA. Sodium bisulfite induces methylation- dependent single nucleotide polymorphisms by converting unmethylated cytosine to uracil and, upon PCR amplification, to thymine. 5-methylcytosine is highly resistant to sodium bisulfite treatment, therefore being amplified as cytosine and allowing a sequence-based discrimination of methylated and unmethylated genomic DNA. Geniom offers a unique approach for this analysis. The sequence conversion can be detected using microarrays containing oligonucleotide probes that reflect the methylated as well as the unmethylated status of each CpG dinucleotide of a given genomic sequence.