Comprehensive DNA Methylation Analysis Using a Methyl-CpG-binding Domain Capture-based Method in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Patients

Summary

This work describes an optimized methyl-CpG-binding domain (MBD) sequencing protocol and a computational pipeline to identify differentially methylated CpG-rich regions in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients.

Abstract

The role of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in cancer is coming to the forefront due to growing interest in understanding their mechanistic functions during cancer development and progression. Despite this, the global epigenetic regulation of lncRNAs and repetitive sequences in cancer has not been well investigated, particularly in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). This study focuses on a unique approach: the immunoprecipitation-based capture of double-stranded, methylated DNA fragments using methyl-binding domain (MBD) proteins, followed by next-generation sequencing (MBD-seq). CLL patient samples belonging to two prognostic subgroups (5 IGVH mutated samples + 5 IGVH unmutated samples) were used in this study. Analysis revealed 5,800 hypermethylated and 12,570 hypomethylated CLL-specific differentially methylated genes (cllDMGs) compared to normal healthy controls. Importantly, these results identified several CLL-specific, differentially methylated lncRNAs, repetitive elements, and protein-coding genes with potential prognostic value. This work outlines a detailed protocol for an MBD-seq and bioinformatics pipeline developed for the comprehensive analysis of global methylation profiles in highly CpG-rich regions using CLL patient samples. Finally, a protein-coding gene and an lncRNA were validated using pyrosequencing, which is a highly quantitative method to analyze CpG methylation levels to further corroborate the findings from the MBD-seq protocol.

Introduction

The use of next-generation sequencing techniques to analyze global DNA methylation profiles has been increasingly popular during recent years. Genome-wide methylation assays, including microarray- and non-microarray-based methods, were developed based on the following: the bisulfite conversion of genomic DNA, methylation-sensitive restriction enzyme digestions, and the immunoprecipitation of methylated DNA using methyl CpG-specific antibodies.

Aberrant DNA methylation is one of the hallmarks of leukemia and lymphomas, includingchronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Earlier, several groups including ours characterized the DNA methylation profil....

Protocol

The ethical approval for collecting the CLL samples is from 2007-05-21, with the following registration number: EPN Gbg dnr 239/07. All CLL patients were diagnosed according to recently revised criteria⁸, and the samples were collected at the time of diagnosis. The patients in the study were included from different hematology departments in the western part of Sweden after written consent had been obtained. Only CLL peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples with a tumor percentage of leukemic cells ≥70% were selected in this study.

1. Preparations

1. Isolate PBMCs for DNA extractions from CLL an....

Results

MBD-seq was recently performed on CLL patients and matched, normal, healthy controls to identify CLL-specific differentially hyper- and hypomethylated genes⁷. The experimental and bioinformatic pipeline used for analyzing the data generated from CLL and normal healthy samples are shown in Figure 1A and 1B. These analyses identified several CLL-specific differentially methylated regions (cllDMRs), which were significant.......

Discussion

MBD-seq is a cost-effective, immunoprecipitation-based technique that can be used to study methylation patterns with complete genome-wide coverage. Both MeDIP seq (methylated DNA immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing) and MBD-seq result in the enrichment of CpG-rich methylated DNA. However, MBD-seq shows more affinity towards binding to highly CpG-rich regions when compared to MeDIP seq¹⁹. Using a methyl-binding enrichment kit, one can fractionate the DNA into high-CpG- and low-CpG-rich regio.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Dneasy Blood and tissue kit	Qaigen	69504
Lymphoprep solution	A X I S-S H I E L D	1114544
Nano drop 2000	Thermo Fischersceintific
TE buffer pH 8	Sigma aldrich	93283
Bioruptor standard sonication device	Diagenode	UCD-200
TPX bioruptor tubes 1.5 mL	Diagenode	C30010010-300
3 M Sodium acetate	Diagenode	C03030002
E-gel iBase safe imager combo kit	Thermo Fischersceintific	G6465EU
E-gel 2% Agarose gels	Thermo Fischersceintific	G441002
Methylminer Methylated DNA enrichment kit	Thermo Fischersceintific	ME10025
Labquake Tube Shaker/Rotators	Thermo Fischersceintific	415110
Dynal MPC-S	Thermo Fischersceintific	A13346
Vortex mixer	VWR	12620-848
Absolute Ethanol	Any company
70% Ethanool	Any company
DNAse free water	Milli Q
DNA precipitant (3M sodium acetate)	Diagenode	C03030002
Safe seal 1.5 mL eppendorf tubes	Eppendorf	4036-3204
Qubit dsDNA HS Assay Kit	Thermo Fischersceintific	Q32851
Qubit 0.5 mL tubes	Thermo Fischersceintific	Q32856
Qubit	Thermo Fischersceintific	Q32866
Illumina Hiseq2000 Platform	Illumina
Water  Bath	Grant
Heat block	grant
Tube rotater	Labquake