PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Joana Frobel
AU  - Tanja Božić
AU  - Michael Lenz
AU  - Peter Uciechowski
AU  - Yang Han
AU  - Reinhild Herwartz
AU  - Klaus Strathmann
AU  - Susanne Isfort
AU  - Jens Panse
AU  - André Esser
AU  - Carina Birkhofer
AU  - Uwe Gerstenmaier
AU  - Thomas Kraus
AU  - Lothar Rink
AU  - Steffen Koschmieder
AU  - Wolfgang Wagner
TI  - Leukocyte counts based on site-specific DNA methylation analysis
AID  - 10.1101/150110
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 150110
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/14/150110.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/14/150110.full
AB  - The composition of white blood cells is usually assessed by histomorphological parameters or flow cytometric measurements. Alternatively, leukocyte differential counts (LDCs) can be estimated by deconvolution algorithms for genome-wide DNA methylation (DNAm) profiles. We identified cell-type specific CG dinucleotides (CpGs) that facilitate relative quantification of leukocyte subsets. Site-specific analysis of DNAm levels by pyrosequencing provides similar precision of LDCs as conventional methods, whereas it is also applicable to frozen samples and requires only very small volumes of blood. Furthermore, we describe a new approach for absolute quantification of cell numbers based on a non-methylated reference DNA. Our “Epi-Blood-Count” facilitates robust and cost effective analysis of blood counts for clinical application.