These tracks are genome-wide DNA methylation maps generated by Roadmap Epigenomics Project.
Each track is collection of DNA methylation experiment data on one sample type.
DNA methylation of human DNA mostly happens on cytosine bases of CpG dinucleotides.
The methylated DNA usually prevent accessibility of regulatory proteins and hampers transcription, while unmethylated DNA is usually indicative of open chromatin.
The MeDIP-Seq and MRE-Seq experiments are usually performed on same sample to identify genome-wide DNA methylation pattern.
MeDIP-Seq (methylated DNA immunoprecipitation and sequencing) is a ChIP-based approach utilizing antibody against methylated cytosine.
This method enriches methylated DNA and high read count indicates high likelihood of underlying region is methylated.
The MRE-Seq (methylation restriction enzyme sequencing) uses methylation-sensitive restriction enzymes to digest DNA, and only cut at unmethylated restriction sites.
The cut restriction sites will be detected by sequencing where reads aligned to a restriction site on reference genome means the restriction site is unmethylated.
The MethylC-Seq (MethylC sequencing) uses bisulfite to convert methylated cytosines to thymines before sequencing.
The percentage of reads with a T versus a C indicates the percentage methylation at the cytosine.
Details can be found in this paper
Lister R, et al., Nature. 2009 Nov 19;462(7271):315-22.
.
RRBS (Reduced-Representation-Bisulfite-Sequencing) is similar to MethylC-seq except RRBS uses restriction enzyme to fragment the genome into fragments suitably-sized for sequencing.
While RRBS produces percent methylation similar to MethylC-seq, it is limited to cytosines that are within restriction fragments of a suitable size and then tend to measure CpG dense regions only.
Details can be found in this paper:
Meissener, A. et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 2005; 33(18): 5868-5877.
.
Display conventions
This track displays read density data in form of wiggle plots.
Number of aligned reads is counted at each base pair, and a summarized value is computed for each 20 bp interval for display.
Different y-axis range applies to each experiment types (MeDIP-Seq, MRE-Seq, MethylC-Seq) and can be controled in each view type.
The subtracks can be displayed and configured individually.
See instructions
.
Data processing:
EDACC
carried out data processing and quality assessment.
Details are fully explained
here
.
In brief, sequencing reads were aligned with 'Pash' program to derive read density data.
The read density data is prepared into 'wiggle' format files with fixed step length of 20 bp.
Data in wiggle and other formats have been deposited in NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus database for public access.
Quality control:
the
HotSpot
was one of the methods used to assess quality of MeDIP-Seq experiments.
The long track name includes a "Hotspot_Score" field indicates the percentage of sequencing reads found inside hotspot regions.
The "Pcnt" field shows the percentile of current experiment score in all MeDIP-Seq experiments.
This value is subject to change in next Data Release.
The most comprehensive and up-to-date description on QC Metrics used by the consortium can be found
here
.
Release Notes
The data were mapped to human reference genome version hg19 as part of Release IV (07/11/2011) of Roadmap Epigenomics Project.
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