Chemical-oxidation cleavage triggered isothermal exponential amplification reaction for attomole gene-specific methylation analysis

Anal Chem. 2015 Mar 3;87(5):2945-51. doi: 10.1021/ac5044785. Epub 2015 Feb 11.

Abstract

Genomic 5-methylcytosine (5-mC) modification is known to extensively regulate gene expression. The sensitive and convenient analysis of gene-specific methylation is wishful but challenging due to the lack of means that can sensitively and sequence-selectively discriminate 5-mC from cytosine without the need for polymerase chain reaction. Here we report a chemical-oxidation cleavage triggered exponential amplification reaction (EXPAR) method named COEXPAR for gene-specific methylation analysis. EXPAR was proved to not only have rapid amplification kinetics under isothermal condition but also show excellent sequence-selectivity and linear-dependence on EXPAR trigger. Further initiation of EXPAR by chemical-cleavage of DNA at 5-mC, the COEXPAR showed high specificity for methylated and nonmethylated DNA, and ∼10(7) copies of triggers were replicated in 20 min, which were used to quantify the methylation level at the methylation loci. As a result, the gene-specific methylation level of a p53 gene fragment, as a target model, was analyzed in two linear ranges of 10 fM-1 pM and 1 pM-10 nM, and limits of detection of 411 aM (S/N = 3) by fluorescence, and 576 aM (S/N = 3) by electrochemistry. The method fulfilled the assay in an isothermal way in ∼5 h without the need for tedious sample preparation and accurate thermocycling equipment, which is likely to be a facile and ultrasensitive way for gene-specific methylation analysis.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Base Sequence
  • DNA / analysis*
  • DNA Cleavage*
  • DNA Methylation*
  • Electrochemistry*
  • Fluorescence
  • Humans
  • Kinetics
  • Limit of Detection
  • Mass Spectrometry
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques / methods*
  • Organic Chemicals / chemistry*
  • Oxidation-Reduction

Substances

  • Organic Chemicals
  • DNA