The human colon cancer methylome shows similar hypo- and hypermethylation at conserved tissue-specific CpG island shores.

ABSTRACT: For the past 25 years, it has been known that alterations in DNA methylation (DNAm) occur in cancer, including hypomethylation of oncogenes and hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes. However, most studies of cancer methylation have assumed that functionally important DNAm will occur in promoters, and that most DNAm changes in cancer occur in CpG islands. Here we show that most methylation alterations in colon cancer occur not in promoters, and also not in CpG islands, but in sequences up to 2 kb distant, which we term 'CpG island shores'. CpG island shore methylation was strongly related to gene expression, and it was highly conserved in mouse, discriminating tissue types regardless of species of origin. There was a notable overlap (45-65%) of the locations of colon cancer-related met

SUBMITTER: Irizarry RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2729128 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature