Single-cellDNA methylation heterogeneity establishes the gold standard.

DNA methylation is a epigenetic modification that is widely present in eukaryotic organisms, which plays a vital role in the biological process of gene transcription regulation, cell differentiation, genomic imprinting, And X chromosome inactivation.
due to the limitations of sequencing techniques and computational methods, in the past researchers have obtained the average level of DNA methylation in a cell population.
average methylation levels carry a certain amount of information, but they lose important information such as methylation heterogeneity between different cells, which may have special significance in embryonic development and cell differentiation.
With the development of single-cell sequencing technology, researchers have developed single-cell BS-seq single-cell sequenceine in mouse embryonic stem cells.
the Qian Wenfeng Research Group of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences based on this data, setting a gold standard for single-cell DNA methylation heterogeneity.
based on this, they optimized the calculation strategy for estimating the methylation of single-cell DNA methylation from bulk BS-seq data from cell population samples -- and in the absence of single-cell sulphate sequencing data, they can also accurately quantify intercellular DNA methylation heterogeneity using data from the sequencing of sulphate in cell population samples.
diagram: The methylation of dna between cells is accurately quantified using data from the sequencing of dissulphate sequencing in cell population samples.
(A) the two dna regions have similar levels of DNA methylation, but may have different intercellular DNA methylation heterogeneous.
(B) quantitative intercellular DNA methylation heterogeneity using data from cell population sample sulphate sequencing. the
(C) HeteroMeth database provided DNA methylation heterogeneity data from a total of 141 samples from humans, mice, amoeba and rice.
using this algorithm, the researchers successfully built the HeteroMeth database (link).
the database provides DNA methylation heterogeneity data from a total of 141 samples of humans, mice, amoeba and rice, which can be easily found, browsed and downloaded.
the results of this research will promote the systematic identification of DNA methylation modified heterogeneous features, thus providing key support for the exploration of epigenetic mechanisms during cell differentiation and embryonic development.
the above-mentioned study was published in Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics (DOI: 10.1016/j.gpb.2018.07.002).
Qian Wenfeng Research Group Assistant Researcher Yu Qing and Ph.D. graduate student Zhang Yuliang are co-authors of the paper.
the research was funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' strategic leading science and technology special funding.
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