LINE-1 Methylation Analysis in Mesenchymal Stem Cells Treated with Osteosarcoma-Derived Extracellular Vesicles

Methylation-specific probe amplification (MSPA) is a simple and robust technique that can be used to detect relative differences in methylation levels of DNA samples. It is resourceful, requires small amounts of DNA, and takes around 4–5 h of hands-on work. In the presented technique, DNA samples are first denatured then hybridized to probes that target DNA at either methylated or reference sites as a control. Hybridized DNA is separated into parallel reactions, one undergoing only ligation and the other undergoing ligation followed by HhaI-mediated digestion at unmethylated GCGC sequences. The resultant DNA fragments are amplified by PCR and separated by capillary electrophoresis. Methylated GCGC sites are not digested by HhaI and produce peak signals, while unmethylated GCGC sites are digested and no peak signals are generated. Comparing the control-normalized peaks of digested and undigested versions of each sample provides the methylation dosage ratio of a DNA sample. Here, MSPA is used to detect the effects of osteosarcoma-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) on the methylation status of long interspersed nuclear element-1 (LINE-1) in mesenchymal stem cells. LINE-1s are repetitive DNA elements that typically undergo hypomethylation in cancer and, in this capacity, may serve as a biomarker. Ultracentrifugation is also used as a cost-effective method to separate extracellular vesicles from biological fluids (i.e., when preparing EV-depleted fetal bovine serum [FBS] and isolating EVs from osteosarcoma conditioned media [differential centrifugation]). For methylation analysis, custom LINE-1 probes are designed to target three methylation sites in the LINE-1 promoter sequence and seven control sites. This protocol demonstrates the use of MSPA for LINE-1 methylation analysis and describes the preparation of EV-depleted FBS by ultracentrifugation.