DNA methylation and differentiation: HOX genes in muscle cells.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Tight regulation of homeobox genes is essential for vertebrate development. In a study of genome-wide differential methylation, we recently found that homeobox genes, including those in the HOX gene clusters, were highly overrepresented among the genes with hypermethylation in the skeletal muscle lineage. Methylation was analyzed by reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) of postnatal myoblasts, myotubes and adult skeletal muscle tissue and 30 types of non-muscle-cell cultures or tissues.

Results

In this study, we found that myogenic hypermethylation was present in specific subregions of all four HOX gene clusters and was associated with various chromatin epigenetic features. Although the 3' half of the HOXD cluster was silenced and enriched in polycomb

SUBMITTER: Tsumagari K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3750649 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature