NEpiC: a network-assisted algorithm for epigenetic studies using mean and variance combined signals.

ABSTRACT: DNA methylation plays an important role in many biological processes. Existing epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) have successfully identified aberrantly methylated genes in many diseases and disorders with most studies focusing on analysing methylation sites one at a time. Incorporating prior biological information such as biological networks has been proven to be powerful in identifying disease-associated genes in both gene expression studies and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) but has been under studied in EWAS. Although recent studies have noticed that there are differences in methylation variation in different groups, only a few existing methods consider variance signals in DNA methylation studies. Here, we present a network-assisted algorithm, NEpiC, that combines both

SUBMITTER: Ruan P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5027497 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature