Improved detection of methylation in ancient DNA

Abstract

Reconstructing premortem DNA methylation levels in ancient DNA has led to breakthrough studies such as the prediction of anatomical features of the Denisovan. These studies rely on computationally inferring methylation levels from damage signals in naturally deaminated cytosines, which requires expensive high-coverage genomes. Here, we test two methods for direct methylation measurement developed for modern DNA based on either bisulfite or enzymatic methylation treatments. Bisulfite treatment shows the least reduction in DNA yields as well as the least biases during methylation conversion, demonstrating that this method can be successfully applied to ancient DNA. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13059-024-03405-5. Keywords: Paleogenomics, Methylation, Ancient DNA, Bisulfite treatment, Enzymatic methylation treatment