Technical considerations for placental tissue processing and the subsequent impact on genome-wide DNA methylation analysis
To assess the impact of postnatal processing on placental DNA methylation, array data from flash-frozen placental tissue was compared to perfluorocarbon-immersed and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded placental tissue. We observed that tissue exposed to perfluorocarbon showed no significant DNA methylation differences when compared to unprocessed tissue, while formalin processing altered the quality and reliability of the data produced on the DNA methylation array platform. Placental DNA methylation allows for the study of gene-environment interactions that influence the fetal environment and development. Our study highlights that placental post-processing techniques must be considered in the evaluation and interpretation of epigenetic studies.
Authors
- Christopher Rossi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5792-4393)
- Kushal Kapse (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8363-5404)
- Nickie Andescavage (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6812-7898)
- Catherine Limperopoulos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1735-0069)
- Julius S. Ngwa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6208-1331)
- Emmanuèle C. Délot (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3541-3190)
- Kristen Kocher (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8858-0211)
- Surajit Bhattacharya
- Adre duPlessis
Institutions
- Children's National (US)
- George Washington University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Clinical Epigenetics
- Published
- 2024-09-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s13148-024-01741-8
- Primary Topic
- Epigenetics and DNA Methylation
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin Research Institute
- Children's National Hospital
- A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development