Improved detection of methylation in ancient DNA

Susanna Sawyer, Pere Gelabert, Benjamin Yakir, Alejandro Llanos-Lizcano, Alessandra Sperduti, Luca Bondioli, Olivia Cheronet, Christine Neugebauer-Maresch, Maria Teschler-Nicola, Mario Novak, Ildikó Pap, Ildikó Szikossy, Tamás Hajdu, Vyacheslav Moiseyev, Andrey Gromov, Gunita Zariņa, Eran Meshorer, Liran Carmel, Ron Pinhasi

Publications: Contribution to journalArticlePeer Reviewed

Abstract

Reconstructing premortem DNA methylation levels in ancient DNA has led to breakthrough studies such as the prediction of anatomical features of the Denisovan. These studies rely on computationally inferring methylation levels from damage signals in naturally deaminated cytosines, which requires expensive high-coverage genomes. Here, we test two methods for direct methylation measurement developed for modern DNA based on either bisulfite or enzymatic methylation treatments. Bisulfite treatment shows the least reduction in DNA yields as well as the least biases during methylation conversion, demonstrating that this method can be successfully applied to ancient DNA.

Original languageEnglish
Article number261
JournalGenome Biology
Volume25
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2024

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

  • 106018 Human biology

Keywords

  • Ancient DNA
  • Bisulfite treatment
  • Enzymatic methylation treatment
  • Methylation
  • Paleogenomics

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