Alterations in DNA methylation patterns are one of the earliest and most common events in tumorigenesis. Overall levels of genomic methylation often decrease during transformation, but localized regions of increased methylation have been observed in the same tumors. We have examined changes in the methylation status of the muscle determination gene myoD, which contains a CpG island, as a functi...

Colorectal cancers with widespread CpG island methylation display a number of distinct clinicopathological features, and it has been suggested that the condition has an inheritable genetic component. To address this possibility, histories of cancer were obtained from 562 individuals undergoing curative surgery for unselected colorectal cancer at one institution. Microsatellite status and methyl...

The expression of metallothionein (MT)-3 is often markedly reduced in gastric carcinoma (GC). The molecular mechanism of this MT-3 downregulation is unknown. Transcriptional silencing of MT-3 by methylation of CpG island was investigated by nucleotide sequencing and denaturing high performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) analyses. We found that normal brain tissue and a xenografted GC that ex...

BACKGROUND Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a degenerative knee disease commonly found in the ageing population. DNA methylation works with histone acetylation to participate in aging. Alterations of DNA methylation may involve the joint chondrocyte degeneration in KOA. The aim of this study is to detect DNA methylation changes in chondrocytes of rats with KOA. METHODS The rat KOA model was estab...

The two major transcriptional start sites of the mouse ribosomal protein L7a gene (rpL7a) (formerly Surf-3) have been mapped to two cytidine residues separated by 4 bp embedded in a polypyrimidine tract of 21 bp. The rpL7a gene contains a small first exon (25-29 bp) and a small 5' untranslated leader sequence (22-26 bp). Its transcriptional start sites are not preceded by a canonical TATA box m...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a hepatotropic virus causing hepatitis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The methylation status of the HBV DNA in its different forms can potentially provide insight into the pathogenesis of HBV-related liver diseases, including HCC, however this is unclear. The goal of this study is to obtain comprehensive DNA methylation profiles of the three putative C...

Computational prediction of eukaryotic poIII promoters has been one of the most elusive problems despite considerable effort devoted to the study. Researchers have looked for various types of signals around the transcriptional start site (TSS), viz. oligo-nucleotide statistics, potential binding sites for core factors, clusters of binding sites, proximity to CpG islands etc. The proximity of Cp...

Hypermethylation associated silencing of the CpG islands of tumor suppressor genes is a common hallmark of human cancer. Here we report a functional search for hypermethylated CpG islands using the colorectal cancer cell line HCT-116, in which two major DNA methyltransferases, DNMT1 and DNMT3b, have been genetically disrupted (DKO cells). Using two molecular screenings for differentially methyl...

CpG island methylation has been linked to tumor suppressor gene inactivation in neoplasia and may serve as a useful marker to clone novel cancer-related genes. We have developed a novel PCR-based method, methylated CpG island amplification (MCA), which is useful for both methylation analysis and cloning differentially methylated genes. Using restriction enzymes that have differential sensitivit...

BACKGROUND Most recent genome-wide studies on the CpG island methylation in colorectal cancer (CRC) have led to the discovery of at least 3 distinct methylation clusters. However, there remains an uncertainty whether the CRC clusters identified in these studies represent compatible phenotypes. METHODS We carried out comprehensive genome-scale DNA methylation profiling by Illumina Infinium Hum...