Gel-free multiplexed reduced representation bisulfite sequencing for large-scale DNA methylation profiling

Abstract

Sequencing-based approaches have led to new insights about DNA methylation. While many different techniques for genome-scale mapping of DNA methylation have been employed, throughput has been a key limitation for most. To further facilitate the mapping of DNA methylation, we describe a protocol for gel-free multiplexed reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (mRRBS) that reduces the workload dramatically and enables processing of 96 or more samples per week. mRRBS achieves similar CpG coverage to the original RRBS protocol, while the higher throughput and lower cost make it better suited for large-scale DNA methylation mapping studies, including cohorts of cancer samples.