Epigenetics, a growing field in science, is the chemical modification of the genome without changing how the sequence reads. The information about these changes is derived from chemistry and sequencing. One way of finding these epigenetic sites is to use bisulfite sequencing that locates where methylated cytosines are in a sequence of DNA. However the products of the bisulfite reaction remain to be studied by high-resolution chromatography and structural methods. In this research, two types of cytidines were used in the bisulfite reaction to better understand the products post reaction. For the compound 5-methylcytidine (5mC), bisulfite was found to adduct to the sugar on the 1’ carbon with concomitant deamination of the cytosine heterocycle to uracil in addition to just deamination of the heterocycle. For the compound 5-hydroxymethyl-2’-deoxycytidine (5hmdC), bisulfite reacted at the C5 hydroxmethyl group; this product also underwent deamination. These data can be used in the future to understand more about bisulfite adducts on other cytidine compounds, such as 5-formylcytidine (5fC) and 5-carboxylcytidine (5caC). A better understanding of these bisulfite adducts can help improve epigenetic studies so they are more accurate and informative.

Understanding the products of the bisulfite reaction with 5-methylcytidine and 5-hydroxymethyl-2’-deoxycytidine

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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