B0193
Title: Statistical inference on epi-allelic patterns and profiling of DNA methylation from WGBS data
Authors: Carsten Wiuf - University of Copenhagen (Denmark) [presenting]
Abstract: The study of epigenetic heterogeneity at the level of individual cells and in whole populations is the key to understanding cellular differentiation, organismal development, and the evolution of cancer. We have developed a statistical method (epiG) to infer and differentiate between various epi-allelic haplotypes, annotated with CpG methylation status and DNA polymorphisms, from WGBS data, and nucleosome occupancy from NOMe-seq data. It is a likelihood-based method that clusters WGBS reads into epi-allelic haplotypes based on sequence similarity, while taking into account experimental errors and biological noise. It outputs the dominating epi-allelic haplotypes of a genomic region of interest, annotated with methylation profiles. The capabilities of the method are demonstrated by inferring allele-specific methylation and nucleosome occupancy in cell lines, and colon and tumor samples, and by benchmarking the method against independent experimental data.
