Methyl-CpG/MBD2 Interaction Requires Minimum Separation and Exhibits Minimal Sequence Specificity.

ABSTRACT: Determining the pattern of methylation at CpG dinucleotides in a cell remains an essential component of epigenetic profiling. The correlations among methylation, gene expression, and accompanying disease have just begun to be explored. Many experiments for sensing methylation use a relatively inexpensive, high-throughput approach with a methyl-binding domain (MBD) protein that preferentially binds to methylated CpGs. Here, we characterize the cooperativity and sequence specificity of MBD2-DNA binding in a pulldown experiment revealing three potential biases in such experiments. The first is caused by steric clashes between two MBD2 proteins at mCpGs separated by 2 bp or less, which suggests that simultaneous binding at these sites is inhibited. This is confirmed by comparing input versus p

SUBMITTER: Moreland B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5192688 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature