A cross-package Bioconductor workflow for analysing methylation array data [version 3; referees: 4 approved]

Methylation in the human genome is known to be associated with development and disease. The Illumina Infinium methylation arrays are by far the most common way to interrogate methylation across the human genome. This paper provides a Bioconductor workflow using multiple packages for the analysis of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jovana Maksimovic, Belinda Phipson, Alicia Oshlack
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: F1000 Research Ltd 2017-04-01
Series:F1000Research
Subjects:
Online Access:https://f1000research.com/articles/5-1281/v3
Description
Summary:Methylation in the human genome is known to be associated with development and disease. The Illumina Infinium methylation arrays are by far the most common way to interrogate methylation across the human genome. This paper provides a Bioconductor workflow using multiple packages for the analysis of methylation array data. Specifically, we demonstrate the steps involved in a typical differential methylation analysis pipeline including: quality control, filtering, normalization, data exploration and statistical testing for probe-wise differential methylation. We further outline other analyses such as differential methylation of regions, differential variability analysis, estimating cell type composition and gene ontology testing. Finally, we provide some examples of how to visualise methylation array data.
ISSN:2046-1402