Assessing gene-specific methylation using HRM-based analysis.

As DNA methylation analysis enters the mainstream of biomedical research, there is increasing interest in methodologies that can be used for rapid analysis of a wide variety of biological and clinical samples. The methods that have been commonly used for methylation analysis are usually time-consuming and require multiple steps. The methylation-sensitive high-resolution melting (MS-HRM) assay is an in-tube assay which was developed to assess promoter methylation in sodium bisulphite-modified DNA and is particularly useful for assessing methylation in short fragments of DNA derived from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded biopsies.