Published: Vol 8, Iss 6, Mar 20, 2018 DOI: 10.21769/BioProtoc.2778 Views: 7721
Reviewed by: Renate WeizbauerAnnis Elizabeth RichardsonAnonymous reviewer(s)
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Abstract
DNA methylation is an epigenetic modification that regulates plant development (Law and Jacobsen, 2010). Whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) is a state-of-the-art method for profiling genome-wide methylation patterns with single-base resolution (Cokus et al., 2008). However, for an organism with a large genome, e.g., the 2.1 Gb genome of maize, WGBS may be very expensive. Reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) has been developed in mammalian studies (Smith et al., 2009). By digesting the genome with MspI with a size selection range of approximately 40-220 bp, CG-rich regions covering only ~1% of the human genome can be specifically sequenced. However, unlike mammalian genomes, plant genomes do not exhibit clear CpG islands. Therefore the original RRBS protocol is not suitable for plants. Accordingly, we developed an in silico pipeline to select specific enzymes to generate a region of interest (ROI)-enriched, e.g., promoter-enriched, reduced representation genome in plants (Hsu et al., 2017). By digesting the maize genome with MseI and selecting 40-300 bp segments, we sequenced about one-fourth of the maize genome while preserving 84.3% of the promoter information. The protocol has been successfully established in maize and can be broadly used in any genome. Our in silico pipeline is combined with the RRBS library preparation protocol, allowing for the computational analysis and experimental validation.
Keywords: Bisulfite sequencingBackground
DNA methylation is a heritable epigenetic modification that plays an important role in many developmental processes of animals, plants and fungi by regulating gene expression and the chromatin structure (Law and Jacobsen, 2010). WGBS is a genome-wide scale method for profiling DNA methylation at single-base resolution, although high sequencing costs are required to achieve sufficient coverage (Cokus et al., 2008). In mammals, RRBS has been developed to specifically sequence CG-dense regions, e.g., CpG islands (Smith et al., 2009). In this protocol, we aimed to adapt RRBS for plants. To be specific, we developed an in silico pipeline (Figure 1) to performed enzyme selection by targeting specific genome regions to generate RRBS methylomes and provided an experimental validation protocol.
Our method has been successfully established in the maize genome, one of the major global crops, which has a 2.1 Gb genome (Hsu et al., 2017). In addition to its large size, 85% of the maize genome consists of various repetitive sequences (Schnable et al., 2009). This feature could cause multiple mapping, i.e., many short reads from sequencing, which need to be discarded. These characteristics make targeted bisulfite sequencing (BS-seq) more cost-effective. mCHH islands were found to be located upstream of transcription start sites (TSSs) with higher methylation level (Gent et al., 2013; Li et al., 2015). We therefore aimed to perform promoter-enriched RRBS in maize, and an in silico pipeline was developed for enzyme selection.
Our in silico pipeline currently has 85 pre-installed restriction enzymes. Users can easily append more enzymes. A genome FASTA file, refFlat annotation file, and repeat gff3 annotation file are the required input files to run this pipeline. ROIs, including promoters, exons, introns, splicing sites, repeats, UTRs and intergenic regions are pre-selected for enrichment analysis. As soon as the input files are prepared, users can run our pipeline to select ideal enzymes by typing simple commands. Users can also verify the prediction by performing RRBS library construction following the experimental protocol provided and performing sequencing.
Figure 1. Flowchart of maize RRBS in silico pipeline
Materials and Reagents
Equipment
Software
Procedure
The complete pipeline contains 1. in slico enzyme selection, followed by 2. RRBS library preparation. The resulted library is to be sequenced to generate DNA methylation profiles at genomic regions of interest.
Data analysis
Conclusion
Recipes
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by funding from the Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, Academia Sinica and grants obtained from Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology (106-2633-B-001-001) to P.-Y.C. We thank Yi-Jing Lee for providing the equipment information. The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.
References
Article Information
Copyright
© 2018 The Authors; exclusive licensee Bio-protocol LLC.
How to cite
Hsu, F., Wang, C. R. and Chen, P. (2018). Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing in Maize. Bio-protocol 8(6): e2778. DOI: 10.21769/BioProtoc.2778.
Category
Systems Biology > Epigenomics > DNA methylation
Plant Science > Plant molecular biology > DNA
Molecular Biology > DNA > DNA sequencing
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