BACKGROUND Regions with abundant GC nucleotides, a high CpG number, and a length greater than 200 bp in a genome are often referred to as CpG islands. These islands are usually located in the 5' end of genes. Recently, several algorithms for the prediction of CpG islands have been proposed. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We propose here a new method called CPSORL to predict CpG islands, which...

DNA methylation plays an important role in development of disease and the process of aging. In this study we examine DNA methylation at 476,366 sites throughout the genome of white blood cells from a population cohort (N = 421) ranging in age from 14 to 94 years old. Age affects DNA methylation at almost one third (29%) of the sites (Bonferroni adjusted P-value <0.05), of which 60.5% becomes hy...

CpG islands were originally identified by epigenetic and functional properties, namely, absence of DNA methylation and frequent promoter association. However, this concept was quickly replaced by simple DNA sequence criteria, which allowed for genome-wide annotation of CpG islands in the absence of large-scale epigenetic datasets. Although widely used, the current CpG island criteria incur sign...

The detailed mechanism for DNA methylation homeostasis relies on an intricate regulatory network with a possible contribution from methyl-CpG-binding domain protein 3 (MBD3). In this study we examine the single-molecule behavior of MBD3 and its functional implication in balancing the activity of DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs). Besides a localization tendency to DNA demethylating sites, MBD3 exp...

An altered pattern of epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation and histone modification, is critical to many common human diseases, including cancer. Recently, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was reported to be associated with tumorigenesis through epigenetic regulation of methylation patterns. One of the promising approaches to study DNA methylation and CpG islands (CGIs) is sequencing and ...

the p21 belongs to the cip/kip family of cdk inhibitors involved in cell cycle arrest at specific stages of the cell cycle progression. dna methylation is the best studied epigenetic mark that have been evidently associated to chromatin condensation, and repression of gene transcription. the cpg island hypermethylation in promoter region of certain genes occurs in cancer cells and affects tumor...

The aim of this study was to explore the association of CpG islands methylation of liver kinase B1 (LKB1) with primary lung cancer and smoking, providing a theoretical basis for the demethylating drug to treat lung cancer by detecting the LKB1 promoter CpG methylation. mRNA expression of LKB1 were detected by in situ hybridization and methylation status on Hap II locus of the promoter of LKB1 w...

Directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) into specific somatic cells holds great promise for cell replacement therapies. However, it is unclear if in vitro hESC differentiation causes any epigenetic abnormality such as hypermethylation of CpG islands. Using a differential methylation hybridization method, we identified 65 CpG islands (out of 4608 CpG islands or 1.4%) that ...

CpG islands are genome subsequences with an unexpectedly high number of CG di-nucleotides. They are typically identified using filtering criteria (e.g., G+C% expected vs. observed CpG ratio and length) and are computed using sliding window methods. Most such studies illusively assume an exhaustive search of CpG islands are achieved on the genome sequence of interest. We devise a Lexis diagram a...

Methylation of CpG islands associated with genes can affect the expression of the proximal gene, and methylation of non-associated CpG islands correlates to genomic instability. This epigenetic modification has been shown to be important in many pathologies, from development and disease to cancer. We report the development of a novel high-resolution microarray that detects the methylation statu...