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DNA methylation and chromatin structure: The puzzling CpG islands

โœ Scribed by Paola Caiafa; Michele Zampieri


Book ID
102300382
Publisher
John Wiley and Sons
Year
2005
Tongue
English
Weight
293 KB
Volume
94
Category
Article
ISSN
0730-2312

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โœฆ Synopsis


DNA methylation is the epigenetic modification, which introduces 5mC as fifth base onto DNA. As for the distribution of 5mCs, it is well known that they distribute themselves in a non-random fashion in genomic DNA so that methylation pattern is characterized by the presence of methylated cytosines on the bulk of DNA while the unmethylated ones are mainly located within particular regions termed CpG islands. These regions represent about 1% of genomic DNA and are generally found in the promoter region of housekeeping genes. Their unmethylated state, which is an essential condition for the correct expression of correlated genes, is paradoxical if one considers that these regions are termed CpG islands because they are particularly rich in this dinucleotide, which is the best substrate for enzymes involved in DNA methylation. Anomalous insertion of methyl groups in these regions generally leads to the lack of transcription of correlated genes. An interesting scientific problem is to clarify the mechanism(s) whereby CpG islands, which remain protected from methylation in normal cells, are susceptible to methylation in tumor cells. How the CpG moieties in CpG islands become vulnerable or resistant to the action of DNA methyltransferases and can thus lose or maintain their characteristic pattern of methylation is still an open question. Our aim is to gather some mechanisms regarding this intriguing enigma, which, despite all energy spent, still remains an unresolved puzzle.


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De novo DNA methylation at the CpG islan
โœ Kimi Yamakoshi; Nobuyoshi Shimoda ๐Ÿ“‚ Article ๐Ÿ“… 2003 ๐Ÿ› John Wiley and Sons ๐ŸŒ English โš– 188 KB

## Abstract The zebrafish __no tail__ gene (__ntl__) is indispensable for the formation of the notochord and the tail structure. Here we showed that de novo DNA methylation occurred at the CpG island of __ntl__. The methylation started at the segmentation stage and continued after the larval stage.