Kismeth: analyzer of plant methylation states through bisulfite sequencing

Gruntman, E., Qi, Y., Slotkin, R. K., Roeder, T., Martienssen, R. A., Sachidanandam, R. (September 2008) Kismeth: analyzer of plant methylation states through bisulfite sequencing. BMC bioinformatics, 9. p. 371. ISSN 1471-2105 (Electronic)1471-2105 (Linking)

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URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18786255
DOI: 10.1186/1471-2105-9-371

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There is great interest in probing the temporal and spatial patterns of cytosine methylation states in genomes of a variety of organisms. It is hoped that this will shed light on the biological roles of DNA methylation in the epigenetic control of gene expression. Bisulfite sequencing refers to the treatment of isolated DNA with sodium bisulfite to convert unmethylated cytosine to uracil, with PCR converting the uracil to thymidine followed by sequencing of the resultant DNA to detect DNA methylation. For the study of DNA methylation, plants provide an excellent model system, since they can tolerate major changes in their DNA methylation patterns and have long been studied for the effects of DNA methylation on transposons and epimutations. However, in contrast to the situation in animals, there aren't many tools that analyze bisulfite data in plants, which can exhibit methylation of cytosines in a variety of sequence contexts (CG, CHG, and CHH). RESULTS: Kismeth http://katahdin.mssm.edu/kismeth is a web-based tool for bisulfite sequencing analysis. Kismeth was designed to be used with plants, since it considers potential cytosine methylation in any sequence context (CG, CHG, and CHH). It provides a tool for the design of bisulfite primers as well as several tools for the analysis of the bisulfite sequencing results. Kismeth is not limited to data from plants, as it can be used with data from any species. CONCLUSION: Kismeth simplifies bisulfite sequencing analysis. It is the only publicly available tool for the design of bisulfite primers for plants, and one of the few tools for the analysis of methylation patterns in plants. It facilitates analysis at both global and local scales, demonstrated in the examples cited in the text, allowing dissection of the genetic pathways involved in DNA methylation. Kismeth can also be used to study methylation states in different tissues and disease cells compared to a reference sequence.

Item Type: Paper
Additional Information:
Uncontrolled Keywords: Algorithms Base Sequence DNA Methylation DNA Plant chemistry genetics Molecular Sequence Data Sequence Analysis DNA methods Software Sulfites chemistry
Subjects: bioinformatics
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing > DNA, RNA structure, function, modification > DNA methylation
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing > DNA, RNA structure, function, modification
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics
organism description > plant
CSHL Authors:
Communities: CSHL labs > Martienssen lab
CSHL labs > Sachidanandam lab
School of Biological Sciences > Publications
Depositing User: Matt Covey
Date: 11 September 2008
Date Deposited: 26 Feb 2013 16:39
Last Modified: 22 Sep 2014 16:14
PMCID: PMC2553349
Related URLs:
URI: https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/27556

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