Methylation studies in mole rats. Part 2

An Infinium microarray platform (GPL28271, HorvathMammalMethylChip40) was used to generate DNA methylation data from many tissues of 3 species of mole rats: Cape mole rat (Georychus capensis), Damaraland mole rat (Cryptomys damarensis), Naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber). We generated DNA methylation data from n=94 tissues from 3 species: Cryptomys damarensis (n=10), Georychus capensis (n=6), Heterocephalus glaber (n=78). All tissues ewere obtained from frozen tissue collection that were euthanized for other studies. Kidney (n=6), liver (n=61), skin (n=27). The tissues used in this study were obtained from post-mortem specimens from animals free from disease in compliance. Sample collection was from post-mortem material. Tissue samples were snap frozen in liquid nitrogen following dissection and transferred for storage at -80ºC. Genomic DNA was extracted using Qiagen DNeasy Blood and Tissue kit and quantified using Nanodrop and Qubit.als Genome annotations of the mammalian methylation array can be downloaded from https://github.com/shorvath/MammalianMethylationConsortium The characteristics: Queen pertains to female naked mole rats. Queen=yes indicates that the female is a breeding queen. Queen=no indicates that the animal is a non-breeding female. NA=not applicable (e.g. male) or unknown. The characteristics: ConfidenceInAgeEstimate with numeric value between 0 and 100. It indicates the confidence in the accuracy in the age estimate. This value was assigned by the team of investigators. It is based on their subjective confidence in the accuracy of the record when it comes to the chronological age at the time of samle collection. A value of 100 was chosen for samples whose birthday and death date was accuratly kown. We only used samples with a confidence of 90 or higher when building or evaluating DNA methylation based age estimators or when conducting epigenome wide association studies of chronological age. The characteristics: Age represents chronological/calendar age of the animal at the time of sample collection. Age is in units of years.