Fig 1.
Parental allele-specific methylation of the MEG3 IG DMR and the MEST promoter.
Mean methylation levels and standard deviations of the paternal vs. maternal alleles were determined by DBS with the Roche GSJunior in FCB, AB, and VAT. For both genes, the non-imprinted allele, which is expected to be completely unmethylated, showed an aberrantly high methylation in all analyzed tissues, whereas the imprinted allele showed the expected (90–100%) methylation.
Fig 2.
Parental allele-specific epimutation rates of the MEG3 IG DMR and the MEST promoter.
The percentage of alleles with >50% aberrantly (de)methylated CpGs was demined by DBS with the Roche GSJunior in FCB, AB, and VAT samples. The unmethylated alleles of the paternally imprinted MEG3 and the maternally imprinted MEST genes displayed significantly higher epimutation rates than the methylated alleles.
Fig 3.
Epimutation rates of the MEG3 IG DMR and the MEST promoter in individual samples.
The percentage of paternal (black dots) versus maternal alleles (gray dots) with >50% aberrantly (de)methylated CpGs was determined by DBS with the Roche GSJunior in individual FCB, AB, and VAT samples. With very few exceptions, the unmethylated alleles of the paternally imprinted MEG3 and the maternally imprinted MEST genes displayed much higher epimutation rates than the methylated alleles.
Fig 4.
Mean FCB methylation and epimutation rates of maternal versus paternal alleles of the MEG3 IG DMR, MEG3 promoter, MEST, and PEG3.
DBS was performed with the Illumina MiSeq. The non-imprinted allele of MEG3 (both primary and secondary DMR) and MEST exhibited significantly higher epimutation rates than the imprinted allele.