High-throughput sequencing of methylated cytosine enriched by modification-dependent restriction endonuclease MspJI

BACKGROUND: As a well-known epigenomic modification, DNA methylation is found to be common in plants and plays an important role in many biological processes. Relying on the unique feature of methylation-dependent digestion, the family of methylation-requiring restriction-like endonuclease, such as MspJI and its homologs, was suggested for a potential usage in methylation detection. RESULTS: In this study, we combine MspJI digestion and electrophoretic band selection with next generation high-throughput sequencing technology to detect 5-methylcytosines in Arabidopsis genome. By developing a bioinformatics workflow to attribute the CNNR sites recognized by MspJI to the reference genome, we fulfilled the systematic assessment of this method. CONCLUSIONS: According to the assessment, here we provide the method for generating a detailed map of plant methylome that could be feasible, reliable and economical in methylation investigation.