BACKGROUND DNA methylation is an epigenetic mechanism that has been increasingly investigated in observational human studies, particularly on blood leukocyte DNA. Characterizing the degree and determinants of DNA methylation stability can provide critical information for the design and conduction of human epigenetic studies. METHODS We measured DNA methylation in 12 gene-promoter regions (APC...

In mammals, DNA methylation is a crucial epigenetic modification with key functions during development. Cellular processes that are regulated by DNA methylation comprise X chromosome inactivation, gene imprinting, genomic stability and transcriptional regulation. Generally, the methylation status of the majority of target sites is reliably propagated during mitosis. However, advances in genome-...

in recent years of experience fetal hemoglobin (hbf) induction considers as novel therapeutic approach for β-thalassemia and sickle cell in therapeutic approaches. several pharmacologic agents such as hydroxyurea, azacytidine, butyrate deriviates and immunomodulator drugs like pomalidomide and lnalidomide could able to up-regulate hbf level with different molecular and epigenetic paterns (1-4)....

DNA methylation is implicated in modulating gene transcription in a wide array of taxa. However, a complete understanding of the specific functions of DNA methylation in diverse organisms requires study of the evolutionary patterns of genome methylation. Unfortunately, investigating DNA methylation through empirical means remains challenging due to the transient nature of DNA methylation, the p...

objective: breast cancer is the most common cancer in iranian women. breast tumors are classified based on the estrogen receptor alpha (erα) expression status into er negative and er positive tumors. er negative tumors tend to have worse prognosis and less likely to respond to endocrine therapy. aberrant methylation of gene promoter is one of the mechanisms for gene silencing in breast tumors. ...

The evolutionary mechanisms underlying duplicate gene maintenance and divergence remain highly debated. Epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation, may contribute to duplicate gene evolution by facilitating tissue-specific regulation. However, the role of epigenetic divergence on duplicate gene evolution remains little understood. Here we show, using comprehensive data across 10 diverse ...

DNA methylation is one of several epigenetic mechanisms that play a regulatory role in genome programming and imprinting during embryogenesis. Aberrant DNA methylation has been implicated in the pathogenesis of a number of diseases associated with aging, including cancer and cardiovascular and neurological diseases. Evidence is accumulating that dietary factors in utero modulate disease risk in...

Methylation of cytosine residues in DNA plays an important role in regulating gene expression during vertebrate embryonic development. Conversely, disruption of normal patterns of methylation is common in tumors and occurs early in progression of some human cancers. In vertebrates, it appears that the same DNA methyltransferase maintains preexisting patterns of methylation during DNA replicatio...