Sulfinate Based Selective Labeling of 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine: Application to Biotin Pull Down Assay.

We developed an enzyme-free, chemical method to selectively label the epigenetic base, 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (hmC) with versatile sulfinate reagents in aqueous solvent under mild reaction conditions. This method allows efficient single step conjugation of biotin to hmC site in DNA for enrichment and pull down assays.