SAN DIEGO—In recent years, researchers have come to realize that minor chemical modifications of individual nucleotides in a stretch of DNA can make as much difference to gene expression as the very nucleotide sequence of those genes. With this in mind, the University of Southern California's Dr. Peter Laird recently examined DNA methylation pattern in high-throughput using the Illumina GoldenGate Platform, a methylation array.

 

Laird tested 288 human DNA samples, including genomic clones from various healthy and cancerous human tissues, relying on the BeadStation Methylation software to analyze the data. He found that he could easily discern representatives of the ~1500 CpG methylation sites selected by the platform, as well as X-linked patterns that stood out in the female DNA samples. Furthermore, noise levels were low enough and the assay was sufficiently reproducible that he felt confident in achieving results from less than 1 µg of DNA.