CHARM refers to a custom DNA methylation tiling array design and a normalization pipeline [1, 2]. We currently support data generated using McrBC fractionation and have expanded the list of supported arrays to include several standard Nimblegen designs.

Software features:

  • Microarray data quality assessment
  • Pre-processing/Normalization
  • Probe-level percentage methylation estimates
  • Identification of differentially methylated regions (DMRs)

The analysis tools are provided in two forms:

1. The charm R/Bioconductor package

Requirements

  • R
  • Bioconductor
  • The R package charm and its dependencies.
  • Raw Nimblegen microarray data (.xys) files.
  • RAM: 1Gb + 300Mb/sample (Memory footprint will be reduced in future versions)

This option is recommended for those familiar with R. The charm R package page contains installation instructions and documentation.

2. The charm.jhmi.edu web application

Requirements

  • Web browser
  • Raw Nimblegen microarray data (.xys) files.

This option requires no local software installation. You use a web browser to upload your raw data, choose analysis options, and view/download results. We recommend starting with the tutorial.


Questions?

aryee |@| jhu edu


References

  1. Martin J. Aryee, Zhijin Wu, Christine Ladd-Acosta, Brian Herb, Andrew P. Feinberg, Srinivasan Yegnasubramanian, and Rafael A. Irizarry, "Accurate genome-scale percentage DNA methylation estimates from microarray data" (Biostatistics. 2010 Sep 27. PMID 20858772.
  2. Rafael A. Irizarry, Christine Ladd-Acosta, Benilton Carvalho, Hao Wu, Sheri A. Brandenburg, Jeffrey A. Jeddeloh, Bo Wen, and Andrew P. Feinberg, "Comprehensive high-throughput arrays for relative methylation (CHARM)", Genome Res. 2008 May;18(5):780-90. PMID 18316654.