Genome-wide sequencing and comparative profiling of cattle sperm DNA methylome

Using whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS), we profiled the DNA methylome of cattle sperms through comparison with three bovine somatic tissues (mammary grand, brain and blood). Large differences between cattle sperms and somatic tissues were observed in the methylation patterns. Overall design: Genomic DNA for each tissue was isolated according to the QIAamp DNA Mini Kit protocol (QIAGEN, Valencia, CA, USA). The quality of DNA samples was evaluated using the 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA) including degradation, and potential RNA contamination, and purity (OD260/OD280), and concentration using a spectrophotometer (NanoDrop Technologies, Rockland, DE) to meet the requirements for library construction. The qualified genomic DNA from somatic tissues and sperm were used to construct a library. The library different lanes of a HiSeq X Ten (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA) to generate 150-bp paired-end reads by Novogene (Novogene, Beijing, China).