CpG island methylation in human lymphocytes is highly correlated with DNA sequence, repeats, and predicted DNA structure.

ABSTRACT: CpG island methylation plays an important role in epigenetic gene control during mammalian development and is frequently altered in disease situations such as cancer. The majority of CpG islands is normally unmethylated, but a sizeable fraction is prone to become methylated in various cell types and pathological situations. The goal of this study is to show that a computational epigenetics approach can discriminate between CpG islands that are prone to methylation from those that remain unmethylated. We develop a bioinformatics scoring and prediction method on the basis of a set of 1,184 DNA attributes, which refer to sequence, repeats, predicted structure, CpG islands, genes, predicted binding sites, conservation, and single nucleotide polymorphisms. These attributes are scored on 132 CpG

SUBMITTER: Bock C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1386721 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature