title: Genomic patterns and context specific interpretation of DNA methylation.
abstract: Methylation of CpG dinucleotides is a reversible modification of DNA that is highly prevalent throughout mammalian genomes. Recent advances generated genomic DNA methylation maps during cellular differentiation at unprecedented resolution. Combined with functional assays this revealed that dynamics in DNA methylation coincide with changes in regulatory activity and that transcription factors play an important role in shaping methylation patterns. This tightly links DNA methylation with underlying DNA sequence features and suggests that a substantial fraction of methylation changes occur downstream of gene regulation. Here we discuss our current understanding of the context-dependent readout of DNA methylation and criteria that need to be fulfilled for this modification to be instructive for gene regulation.
authors.affiliation: Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Maulbeerstrasse 66, Basel 4058, Switzerland. Electronic address: tuncay.baubec@fmi.ch.
authors.forename: Tuncay
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Baubec
authors.affiliation: Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Maulbeerstrasse 66, Basel 4058, Switzerland; University of Basel, Faculty of Science, Petersplatz 1, Basel 4003, Switzerland. Electronic address: dirk@fmi.ch.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schübeler
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018899:CpG Islands; D019175:DNA Methylation; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D016678:Genome; D006801:Humans