Tissue-specific DNA methylation loss during ageing and carcinogenesis is linked to chromosome structure, replication timing and cell division rates.

ABSTRACT: DNA methylation is an epigenetic mechanism known to affect gene expression and aberrant DNA methylation patterns have been described in cancer. However, only a small fraction of differential methylation events target genes with a defined role in cancer, raising the question of how aberrant DNA methylation contributes to carcinogenesis. As recently a link has been suggested between methylation patterns arising in ageing and those arising in cancer, we asked which aberrations are unique to cancer and which are the product of normal ageing processes. We therefore compared the methylation patterns between ageing and cancer in multiple tissues. We observed that hypermethylation preferentially occurs in regulatory elements, while hypomethylation is associated with structural features of the chro

SUBMITTER: Dmitrijeva M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6101545 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature