RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Leukocyte counts based on site-specific DNA methylation analysis
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 150110
DO 10.1101/150110
A1 Joana Frobel
A1 Tanja Božić
A1 Michael Lenz
A1 Peter Uciechowski
A1 Yang Han
A1 Reinhild Herwartz
A1 Klaus Strathmann
A1 Susanne Isfort
A1 Jens Panse
A1 André Esser
A1 Carina Birkhofer
A1 Uwe Gerstenmaier
A1 Thomas Kraus
A1 Lothar Rink
A1 Steffen Koschmieder
A1 Wolfgang Wagner
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/14/150110.abstract
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.