The Methylated DNA Quantification Kit (MDQ1) employs a familiar ELISA-like procedure, with no radioactivity or chromatography, to measure global methylation in less than four hours.
The kits are said to be effective with a DNA input as low as 5ng of fully methylated DNA and are arranged in a flexible 8-well assay strips format, allowing for high-throughput applications or manual analysis of DNA from cultured cells, tissues, plasma and other body fluid samples.
Imprint MDQ technology will enable scientists to rapidly quantify the global methylation status of biological samples, providing insight into conditions that alter methylation status and facilitating advanced disease research, the company said.
According to the company, the introduction of MDQ1 kits provides researchers with an alternative to currently available methods for quantifying global methylation, such as reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography, MALDI-TOF-MS, methylation sensitive restriction fingerprinting, DNA methyltransferase assays, immunohistostaining, and dot blots. MDQ1 kits include all necessary reagents, enabling laboratories to screen samples in-house rather than sending them to core facilities.
Tim Fleming, director of commercial marketing at Sigma-Aldrich, said: “Our Imprint MDQ1 kits offer complete and rapid solutions for the quantification of global DNA methylation. The addition of this exciting technology to our epigenetic research product suite reflects Sigma-Aldrich’s commitment to developing a robust platform of technologies to support the epigenetics research community.”