Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 26, 2026
Methyl-binding DNA capture Sequencing for Patient Tissues
Published on: October 31, 2016
Strong concordance of DNA methylation measures between venous and capillary blood - Implications for human epigenome
Hannah-Ruth Engelbrecht1,2, Chaini Konwar1,2, Beryl C Zhuang1,2
1BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4, Canada.
Abstract:
DNA methylation (DNAm) is influenced by the tissue composition, which can be attributed to cellular heterogeneity. Venous and capillary blood are common blood sources in human studies, but may have differences in their cell type composition and resulting DNAm profiles. Using the Illumina EPIC v2 microarray, we compared matched (n = 20) venous and capillary blood samples from the VHAS and illustrated congruency in a typical DNAm workflow. Quality control measures indicated similar performance, with high CpG correlation (Spearman's ρ > 0.9). Blood source was not associated with significant variation in the data, and an epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) indicated no difference as a result of blood source. Fourteen DNAm-based predictors, including epigenetic clocks and inflammatory predictors, did not differ by sample source (p > 0.05). Stratified EWASs of sex and age by blood source identified similar CpG sites. These results suggest that in large-scale DNAm studies, capillary and venous blood sample results are comparable.
