Abstract
Background
Since its initial discovery in 1975, DNA methylation has been intensively studied and shown to be involved in various biological processes, such as development, aging, and tumor progression. Many experimental techniques have been developed to measure the level of DNA methylation. Methyl-CpG binding domain-based capture followed by high-throughput sequencing (MBDCap-seq) is a widely used method for characterizing DNA methylation patterns in a genome-wide manner. However, current methods for processing MBDCap-seq datasets do not take into account the region-specific genomic characteristics that might have an impact on the measurements of the amount of methylated DNA (signal) and background fluctuation (noise). Thus, specific software needs to be developed for MBDCap-seq experiments.