Columbia Technology Ventures

Tagmentation-based method to improve global DNA methylation assays

efficiency and convenience of studying methylation patterns in normal and disease conditions including early cancer detection.

Unmet Need: A way to improve the efficiency and convenience of MeDIP-seq

DNA methylation can shed light into the essential regulatory elements that influence genome expression, providing critical insight into biology and disease pathology, particularly for cancer. Methylated DNA immunoprecipitation sequencing (MeDIP-seq) has been used extensively to analyze DNA methylation in cells. Several features of the MeDIP-seq process including DNA sonication, primer ligation, and T/A tailing continue to act as bottlenecks in terms of efficiency and complexity of the process.

The Technology: An efficient, simple, sensitive method to study DNA methylation

This technology uses DNA tagmentation to tagment into smaller fragments, thus improving upon the traditionally used method of shearing DNA using sonication, which can result in DNA loss and requires a sonicator. Due to tagmentation, MeDIP-seq libraries can be generated with a simple PCR step without complicated and inefficient steps such as primer ligation and T/A tailing described in published MeDIP-seq protocols. The method improves efficiency by enabling generation of high-quality MeDIP-seq libraries from 100 ng instead of 1000 ng of genomic DNA in less than two days.

This technology has been validated with liver tumor and normal tissue samples.

Applications:

  • Research tool for studying DNA methylation in developmental biology
  • Assay for evaluating the impact of therapeutics on methylation and transcription
  • Research tool for identifying biomarkers of methylation associated with disease state
  • Method for improving ongoing workflows interested in studying DNA methylation
  • Analysis tool for other modifications on DNA such as hydroxy-methylation

Advantages:

  • Reduces cost of analysis
  • Reduces the amount of starting materials
  • Simplifies procedures
  • Is more efficient at generating high-quality MeDIP-seq libraries from lower amounts of genomic DNA

Lead Inventor:

Zhiguo Zhang

Patent Information:

Patent Pending

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