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National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

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Publication Detail

Title: Repeated assessment by high-throughput assay demonstrates that sperm DNA methylation levels are highly reproducible.

Authors: Cortessis, Victoria K; Siegmund, Kimberly; Houshdaran, Sahar; Laird, Peter W; Sokol, Rebecca Z

Published In Fertil Steril, (2011 Dec)

Abstract: To assess reliability of a high-throughput assay of sperm DNA methylation.Observational study comparing DNA methylation of sperm isolated from 3 divided and 12 longitudinally collected semen samples.Academic medical center.One man undergoing screening semen analysis during evaluation of an infertile couple and 2 healthy fertile male volunteers.Spermatozoa were separated from seminal plasma and somatic cells using gradient separation. DNA was extracted from spermatozoa, and DNA methylation was assessed at 1,505 DNA sequence-specific sites.Repeatability of sperm DNA methylation measures, estimated by correlation coefficients.DNA methylation levels were highly correlated within matched sets of divided samples (all r ≥ 0.97) and longitudinal samples (average r = 0.97).The described methodology reliably assessed methylation of sperm DNA at large numbers of sites. Methylation profiles were consistent over time. High-throughput assessment of sperm DNA methylation is a promising tool for studying the role of epigenetic state in male fertility.

PubMed ID: 22035967 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: DNA Methylation*/physiology; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/methods; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/standards; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/statistics & numerical data*; Humans; Infertility, Male/genetics; Infertility, Male/metabolism; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Reproducibility of Results; Semen Analysis; Sensitivity and Specificity; Spermatozoa/cytology; Spermatozoa/metabolism*; Time Factors; Validation Studies as Topic

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