background:estrogens play a substantial role in the proliferation, progression and treatment of breast cancer by binding with two estrogen receptors, alpha and beta (erα and erβ). resistance to endocrine therapy is a major problem in the treatment of breast cancers and, in some cases, may be related to loss of er gene expression. we have already showed that erα methylation occurs in high freque...

CpG-island margins and non-island-CpG sites round the transcription start sites of CpG-island-positive and -negative genes are methylated to various degrees in a tissue-specific manner. These methylation-variable CpG sites were analyzed to delineate a relationship between the methylation and transcription of the tissue-specific genes. The level of tissue-specific transcription was estimated by ...

The persistence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is maintained by the nuclear viral covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA), which serves as transcription template for viral mRNAs. Previous studies suggested that cccDNA contains methylation-prone CpG islands, and that the minichromosome structure of cccDNA is epigenetically regulated by DNA methylation. However, the regulatory effect of eac...

Transitional-CpG methylation between unmethylated promoters and nearby methylated retroelements plays a role in the establishment of tissue-specific transcription. This study examined whether chromosomal losses reducing the active genes in cancers can change transitional-CpG methylation and the transcription activity in a cancer-type-dependent manner. The transitional-CpG sites at the CpG-islan...

DNA methylation in transcriptional regulatory regions is crucial for gene expression. The DNA methylation status of the edges of CpG islands, called CpG island shore, is involved in tissue/cell-type-specific gene expression. Haploinsufficiency diseases are caused by inheritance of one mutated null allele and are classified as autosomal dominant. However, in the same pedigree, phenotypic varianc...

About half of all genes have a CpG island surrounding the promoter and transcription start site. Most promoter CpG islands are normally unmethylated in all tissues, irrespective of the expression level of the associated gene. Establishment of the appropriate patterns of DNA methylation in the genome is essential for normal development and patterns of gene expression. Aberrant methylation of CpG...

ARHI is a maternally imprinted tumor suppressor gene that maps to a site on chromosome 1p31 where loss of heterozygosity has been observed in 40% of human breast and ovarian cancers. ARHI is expressed in normal ovarian and breast epithelial cells, but ARHI expression is lost in a majority of ovarian and breast cancers. Expression of ARHI from the paternal allele can be down-regulated by multipl...

BACKGROUND The transitional-CpG sites between weakly methylated genes and densely methylated retroelements are overmethylated in the gastric mucosa infected with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and they are undermethylated in the gastric cancers depending on the level of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) events. This study delineated the transitional-CpG methylation patterns of CpG-island-containing...

In this study, the relationship between CpG island methylation and smoking and DNA methyltransferase in the occurrence and development of lung adenocarcinoma was explored by detecting p16 promoter methylation status. Protein and mRNA levels of p16 were detected by immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization assays. p16 gene promoter and exon 1 CpG island locus Hap II sites methylation status...