title: Development of fluorescent methods for DNA methyltransferase assay.
abstract: DNA methylation modified by DNA methyltransferase (MTase) plays an important role in regulating gene transcription, cell growth and proliferation. The aberrant DNA MTase activity may lead to a variety of human diseases including cancers. Therefore, accurate and sensitive detection of DNA MTase activity is crucial to biomedical research, clinical diagnostics and therapy. However, conventional DNA MTase assays often suffer from labor-intensive operations and time-consuming procedures. Alternatively, fluorescent methods have significant advantages of simplicity and high sensitivity, and have been widely applied for DNA MTase assay. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in the development of fluorescent methods for DNA MTase assay. These emerging methods include amplification-free and the amplification-assisted assays. Moreover, we discuss the challenges and future directions of this area.
authors.forename: Yueying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Xiaoran
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Chun-Yang
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D001681:Biological Assay; D015254:DNA Modification Methylases / Q000378:metabolism*; D005453:Fluorescence; D021141:Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques
chemical_list: D015254:DNA Modification Methylases