A subset of Polycomb-targeted transcription factor genes become hypermethylated yet upregulated in colorectal cancer.

ABSTRACT: DNA methylation is a key epigenetic regulator often disrupted in cancer, yet how promoter methylation dynamics translate into transcriptional changes during cancer progression remains incompletely understood. Here, we employed targeted bisulfite sequencing and RNA-seq on paired tumor and non-tumor tissues from 80 Korean colorectal cancer (CRC) patients to map promoter methylation and gene expression dynamics. Promoters with high baseline methylation in non-tumor tissues tended to become hypomethylated in tumors, while those with low baseline methylation underwent partial hypermethylation. However, these changes did not consistently correlate with gene silencing or activation. Strikingly, promoters marked by Polycomb (PcG⁺) in non-tumor tissue were prone to hypermethylation yet often remain

SUBMITTER: Kwon MK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12356335 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature