Methylation hotspots evidenced by deep sequencing in patients with facioscapulohumeral dystrophy and mosaicism

Objective To investigate the distribution of cytosine-guanine dinucleotide (CpG) sites with a variable level of DNA methylation of the D4Z4 macrosatellite element in patients with facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD). Methods By adapting bisulfite modification to deep sequencing, we performed a comprehensive analysis of D4Z4 methylation across D4Z4 repeats and adjacent 4qA sequence in DNA from patients with FSHD1, FSHD2, or mosaicism and controls. Results Using hierarchical clustering, we identified clusters with different levels of methylation and separated, thereby the different groups of samples (controls, FSHD1, and FSHD2) based on their respective level of methylation. We further show that deep sequencing–based methylation analysis discriminates mosaic cases for which methylation changes have never been evaluated previously. Conclusions Altogether, our approach offers a new high throughput tool for estimation of the D4Z4 methylation level in the different subcategories of patients having FSHD. This methodology allows for a comprehensive and discriminative analysis of different regions along the macrosatellite repeat and identification of focal regions or CpG sites differentially methylated in patients with FSHD1 and FSHD2 but also complex cases such as those presenting mosaicism.