Imprinted genes as a control? - (Jun/01/2007 )

Hi,

We're examining normal breast epithelial cells for increased levels of methylation to indicate elevated risk profiles. Since the methylation percentages seem to be fairly low we are considering the use of a imprinted gene such as DMR H19 or IGF2 as a positive gene control to show that we can see high levels of methylation in a gene which SHOULD be methylated in all our samples. Is the use of imprinted genes as controls a common practice in methylation analysis of normal tissue?

in short, yes, because they are of known methylation status, but be sure that you are using the correct tissue in which the loci are imprinted.

Good luck

Nick