DNA-methylation patterns of cells in culture reflect the tissue of origin, the cell type, the state of replicative senescence, and culture conditions. DNA methylation profiles can be useful for the lineage classification and quality control of stem cells such as embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent cells and mesenchymal stem cells. Such quality control is important to faciliate reliable and reproducible results. Cygenia offers the following assays to provide epigenetic quality control of your cells in culture:
Epi-Pluri-Score: To validate pluripotency of pluripotent stem cells
The pluripotent state of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) can be validated by an epigenetic signature.
Epi-Senescence-Score: To determine the state of replicative senescence
In vitro cultures are associated with very specific DNA-methylation changes that are continuously acquired during culture expansion. Some of these can be used to track the state of cellular aging and reflect the number of previous passages for mesenchymal stem cells or fibroblasts.
Epi-MSC-Score: To discern fibroblasts and mesenchymal stem cells
Mesenchymal stem cells are phenotypically very similar to fibroblasts. Our assay can help to discern these cell types.
Epi-Fibroblast-Score: To estimate the fraction of fibroblasts
It is not trivial to determine the fraction of fibroblasts in tissue, e.g. in fibrotic samples. The Epi-Fibroblast-Score provides an estimate for the fraction of fibroblasts based on DNA methylation.
Tissue deconvolution: To estimate the composition of different cell types in a tissue
Tissues are a complex mixture of different cell types, such as endothelial cells, blood cells, neurons, hepatocytes etc. With deconvolution algorithms it is possible to estimate this composition.