DNA Methylation: Studies have revealed why normal cells change and cause cancer.Read here

DNA methylation is a biological process in which a methyl group is added to a DNA molecule. Methylation You can change the activity of a DNA segment without changing the sequence.

DNA methylation is important for controlling tissue-specific gene expression that determines cell identity, such as whether cells are skin cells or brain cells, in other organisms, including humans.

“The study of DNA methylation is part of the field of epigenetics. Why one particular type of bacterium causes more serious illness than another, and the changes in normal cells include: It’s important because it helps you understand why it can cause a lot of illnesses. Cancer. ” The corresponding author, Dr. Tao Wu, an assistant professor of molecular genetics and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, said.

Woolabo is cancer Epigenetics Lab.. Its long-term goal is to overcome cancer’s resistance to treatment by better understanding the role of epigenetics in this disease.

Bacteria have three different forms of DNA methylation.

-The most common are those that tag DNA bases or building block adenine (N6-methyladenine or 6mA).

-The other two tag the DNA base cytosine (N4-methylcytosine or 4mC and 5-methylcytosine or 5mC).

While there are many ways to study DNA methylation, there are also several ways to efficiently map the three types at the same time, Wu explained.

“Non-bacterial organisms, including mammals, were thought to use only methylcytosine tag (5mC) to regulate gene activity, but when I was at Yale University in 2016, I We also have 6mA of DNA in mammals in Nature. ” “This discovery opens up entirely new possibilities for cancer epigenetics research.”

Traditional methods of studying 5mC do not capture adenine methylation in mammalian tissues. “This has led us to develop a new way to profile 4mC and 5mC as well as 6mA,” Wu said.

In the current study, Wu and his colleague We report the development of a chemistry-based sequencing method for the simultaneous quantification of different epigenetic markers. Their method, called NT-seq, stands for nitrite treatment and subsequent next-generation sequencing, a sequencing method for detecting multiple types of DNA methylation throughout the genome. This method can also amplify a limited clinical sample, but no other method.

“NT-seq has shown that it can detect 6mA, 4mC, and 5mC in both bacterial and non-bacterial cells, including mammalian cells,” Wu said. “Compared to other methods, NT-seq is efficient, cost-effective, fast, and high-resolution. Some of its limitations are specific to the particular composition of some genomes. This limitation. There is a suggestion in the paper on how to supplement. “”

“I’m excited about NT-seq,” Wu said. “Understanding new DNA methylation patterns and motifs, validating results obtained by other methods, generating datasets for developing machine learning tools for methylation analysis, and in non-bacterial organisms, including research. It can pave the way for facilitating epigenetic research in genomic DNA 6mA. About cancer epigenetics. “

Other contributors to this work include lead authors Xuwen Lee, Ishigen Guo, Yang Kui, Jijian Chan, Shinron Luo, Margarita T. Angelova, Laura F. Landweber, and Inshen Wan. included. The author is affiliated with one or more institutions such as Baylor College of Medicine, University of California, Riverside, Columbia University, Baylor’s Aging Huffington Center, and Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

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