• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.358-363
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• 2015

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Previous studies have indicated that when compared to young mice, old mice have lower global DNA methylation and higher p16 promoter methylation in colonic mucosa, which is a common finding in colon cancer. It is also known that a Western-style diet (WSD) high in fat and calories, and low in calcium, vitamin D, fiber, methionine and choline (based on the AIN 76A diet) is tumorigenic in colons of mice. Because DNA methylation is modifiable by diet, we investigate whether a WSD disrupts DNA methylation patterns, creating a tumorigenic environment. SUBJECTVIES/METHODS: We investigated the effects of a WSD and aging on global and p16 promoter DNA methylation in the colon. Two month old male C57BL/6 mice were fed either a WSD or a control diet (AIN76A) for 6, 12 or 17 months. Global DNA methylation, p16 promoter methylation and p16 expression were determined by LC/MS, methyl-specific PCR and real time RT-PCR, respectively. RESULTS: The WSD group demonstrated significantly decreased global DNA methylation compared with the control at 17 months (4.05 vs 4.31%, P = 0.019). While both diets did not change global DNA methylation over time, mice fed the WSD had lower global methylation relative to controls when comparing all animals (4.13 vs 4.30%, P = 0.0005). There was an increase in p16 promoter methylation from 6 to 17 months in both diet groups (P < 0.05) but no differences were observed between diet groups. Expression of p16 increased with age in both control and WSD groups. CONCLUSIONS: In this model a WSD reduces global DNA methylation, whereas aging itself has no affect. Although the epigenetic effect of aging was not strong enough to alter global DNA methylation, changes in promoter-specific methylation and gene expression occurred with aging regardless of diet, demonstrating the complexity of epigenetic patterns.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.38.1-38.6
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• 2019

DNA methylation is a relatively stable epigenetic modification that can regulate and stabilize gene expression patterns and hence establish cell identity. Because metabolic intermediates are key factors of DNA methylation and demethylation, perturbations in metabolic homeostasis can trigger alterations in cell-specific patterns of DNA methylation and contribute to disease development, including type 2 diabetes (T2D). During the past decade, genome-wide DNA methylation studies of T2D have expanded our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying T2D. This review summarizes case-control studies of the DNA methylome of T2D and discusses DNA methylation as both a cause and consequence of T2D. Therefore, DNA methylation has potential as a promising T2D biomarker that can be applied to the development of therapeutic strategies for T2D.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.18
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• pp.8059-8065
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• 2016

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a common tumor in southern China and south-eastern Asia. Effective strategies for the prevention or screening of NPC are limited. Exploring effective biomarkers for the early diagnosis and prognosis of NPC continues to be a rigorous challenge. Evidence is accumulating that DNA methylation alterations are involved in the initiation and progression of NPC. Over the past few decades, aberrant DNA methylation in single or multiple tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) in various biologic samples have been described in NPC, which potentially represents useful biomarkers. Recently, large-scale DNA methylation analysis by genome-wide methylation platform provides a new way to identify candidate DNA methylated markers of NPC. This review summarizes the published research on the diagnostic and prognostic potential biomarkers of DNA methylation for NPC and discusses the current knowledge on DNA methylation as a biomarker for the early detection and monitoring of progression of NPC.

• BMB Reports
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• v.49 no.7
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• pp.359-369
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• 2016

DNA methylation is emerging as an attractive marker providing investigative leads to solve crimes in forensic genetics. The identification of body fluids that utilizes tissue-specific DNA methylation can contribute to solving crimes by predicting activity related to the evidence material. The age estimation based on DNA methylation is expected to reduce the number of potential suspects, when the DNA profile from the evidence does not match with any known person, including those stored in the forensic database. Moreover, the variation in DNA implicates environmental exposure, such as cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption, thereby suggesting the possibility to be used as a marker for predicting the lifestyle of potential suspect. In this review, we describe recent advances in our understanding of DNA methylation variations and the utility of DNA methylation as a forensic marker for advanced investigative leads from evidence materials.

• Interdisciplinary Bio Central
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.4.1-4.7
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• 2009

Introduction: Histone modifications and DNA methylation are the major factors in epigenetic gene regulation. Especially, revealing how histone modifications are related to DNA methylation is one of the challenging problems in this field. In this paper, we address this issue and propose several plausible mechanisms for precise controlling of DNA methylation status at CpG islands. Materials and Methods: To establish the regulatory relationships, we used 38 histone modification types including H2A.Z and CTCF, and DNA methylation status at CpG islands across chromosome 6, 20, and 22 of human CD4+ T cell. We utilized Bayesian network to construct regulatory network. Results and Discussion: We found several meaningful relationships supported by previous studies. In addition, our results show that histone modifications can be clustered into several groups with different regulatory properties. Based on those findings we predicted the status of methylation level at CpG islands with high accuracy, and suggested core-regulatory network to control DNA methylation status.

• BMB Reports
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• v.50 no.11
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• pp.546-553
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• 2017

Aging is a natural and gradual process in human life. It is influenced by heredity, environment, lifestyle, and disease. DNA methylation varies with age, and the ability to predict the age of donor using DNA from evidence materials at a crime scene is of considerable value in forensic investigations. Recently, many studies have reported age prediction models based on DNA methylation from various tissues and body fluids. Those models seem to be very promising because of their high prediction accuracies. In this review, the changes of age-associated DNA methylation and the age prediction models for various tissues and body fluids were examined, and then the applicability of the DNA methylation-based age prediction method to the forensic investigations was discussed. This will improve the understandings about DNA methylation markers and their potential to be used as biomarkers in the forensic field, as well as the clinical field.

• Journal of Plant Biology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.101-109
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• 1994

Relationship between polyamine level and DNA methylation in the absence or presence of MGBG(l mM), which is an enzyme-activated reversible inhibitor of SAMDC, has been investigated during gametogenesis of Chlamydomonas. In the absence of MGBG, polyamine levels decreased in Chlamydomonas 137C(+) and 137C(-) during gametogenesis. And polyamine level of 137C(+) was 2-5 times as much as that of 137C(-) and showed a significant decrease unlike that of 137C(-). In vitro, MGBG inhibited ctDNA methylation of 137C(+) by 20-30% but did not inhibited that of 137C(-). Also, MGBG inhibited DNA methylase by 60% in vitro. The results obtained in the present work suggest the possibility that the changes of polyamine level may be associated with ctDNA methylation during gametogenesis of Chlamydomonas.omonas.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.88-100
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• 2022

Gastric cancer (GC) is a significant cause of cancer mortality which has led to focused exploration of the pathology of GC. The advent of genome-wide analysis methods has made it possible to uncover genetic and epigenetic fluctuation such as abnormal DNA methylation in gene promoter regions that is expected to play a key role in GC. The study of gastric malignancies requires an etiological perspective, and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) was identified to play a role in GC. H. pylori infection causes chronic inflammation of the gastric epithelium causing abnormal polyclonal methylation, which might raise the risk of GC. In the last two decades, various pathogenic factors by which H. pylori infection causes GC have been discovered. Abnormal DNA methylation is triggered in several genes, rendering them inactive. In GC, methylation patterns are linked to certain subtypes including microsatellite instability. Multiple cancer-related processes are more usually changed by abnormal DNA methylation than through mutations, according to current general and combined investigations. Furthermore, the amount of acquired abnormal DNA methylation is heavily linked to the chances of developing GC. Therefore, we investigated abnormal DNA methylation in GC and the link between methylation and H. pylori infection.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.28-37
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• 2017

Obesity is a highly prevalent, chronic disorder that has been increasing in incidence in young patients. Both epigenetic and genetic aberrations may play a role in the pathogenesis of obesity. Therefore, in-depth epigenomic and genomic analyses will advance our understanding of the detailed molecular mechanisms underlying obesity and aid in the selection of potential biomarkers for obesity in youth. Here, we performed microarray-based DNA methylation and gene expression profiling of peripheral white blood cells obtained from six young, obese individuals and six healthy controls. We observed that the hierarchical clustering of DNA methylation, but not gene expression, clearly segregates the obese individuals from the controls, suggesting that the metabolic disturbance that occurs as a result of obesity at a young age may affect the DNA methylation of peripheral blood cells without accompanying transcriptional changes. To examine the genome-wide differences in the DNA methylation profiles of young obese and control individuals, we identified differentially methylated CpG sites and investigated their genomic and epigenomic contexts. The aberrant DNA methylation patterns in obese individuals can be summarized as relative gains and losses of DNA methylation in gene promoters and gene bodies, respectively. We also observed that the CpG islands of obese individuals are more susceptible to DNA methylation compared to controls. Our pilot study suggests that the genome-wide aberrant DNA methylation patterns of obese individuals may advance not only our understanding of the epigenomic pathogenesis but also early screening of obesity in youth.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.136-137
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• 2011

Methylation of cytosine is a post-synthesis modification that does not affect the primary DNA sequence but greatly influences gene expression level and phenotypes of an organism. As high-throughput sequencing of bisulfite-treated DNA is the most efficient method to identify methylated sites, several tools to map sequencing reads on a reference are available. But tools to visualize and to interpret the methylation level of methylation sites are currently insufficient. Herein, we present a novel tool to visualize the methylation level of CpG sites.