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Most genome-wide methylation studies (EWAS) of multifactorial disease traits use targeted arrays or enrichment methodologies preferentially covering CpG-dense regions, to characterize sufficiently large samples. To overcome this limitation, we present here a new customizable, cost-effective approach, methylC-capture sequencing (MCC-Seq), for sequencing functional methylomes, while simultaneously providing genetic variation information. To illustrate MCC-Seq, we use whole-genome bisulfite sequencing on adipose tissue (AT) samples and public databases to design AT-specific panels. We establish its efficiency for high-density interrogation of methylome variability by systematic comparisons with other approaches and demonstrate its applicability by identifying novel methylation variation within enhancers strongly correlated to plasma triglyceride and HDL-cholesterol, including at CD36. Our more comprehensive AT panel assesses tissue methylation and genotypes in parallel at ∼4 and ∼3 M sites, respectively. Our study demonstrates that MCC-Seq provides comparable accuracy to alternative approaches but enables more efficient cataloguing of functional and disease-relevant epigenetic and genetic variants for large-scale EWAS.

Original publication

DOI

10.1038/ncomms8211

Type

Journal article

Journal

Nat Commun

Publication Date

29/05/2015

Volume

6

Keywords

Adipose Tissue, CD36 Antigens, Cholesterol, HDL, CpG Islands, DNA Methylation, Enhancer Elements, Genetic, Epigenesis, Genetic, Genomics, Genotype, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Humans, Triglycerides