The HELP assay
The HELP assay uses
HpaII and MspI representations of the genome
hybridised to NimbleGen microarrays to identify patterns of
cytosine methylation. It has several advantages over other
techniques, in particular its technical ease of use, its
inbuilt controls and how it lends itself to bioinformatic
analysis. We have applied the HELP assay in four organisms,
in cancer, diabetes, dietary studies and gene
knockdowns/mutations, revealing highly-reproducible
patterns that stand up to subsequent single-locus
validation studies.
A current priority is to develop a pipeline for
high-throughput analysis of HELP data, as this has been the
slowest component of the process to date. We provide links
to current publications using the assay below, and the
current version of the HELP protocol. If you have any
questions, contact us and we'll be happy to help you.
An opensource resource for discussion of the HELP assay can
be found using its description at
Wikipedia.
References
Genome Research
2006
Protocol
HELP_version1 (updated August 2006)
Acknowledgements
The HELP assay was developed
using a grant from the NCI (NIH) R03 CA111577.
