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Updated: May 21, 2026

Enhanced Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing for Assessment of DNA Methylation at Base Pair Resolution
Published on: February 24, 2015
Functions of DNA methylation: islands, start sites, gene bodies and beyond
1USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-99176, USA. pjones@med.usc.edu
Abstract:
DNA methylation is frequently described as a 'silencing' epigenetic mark, and indeed this function of 5-methylcytosine was originally proposed in the 1970s. Now, thanks to improved genome-scale mapping of methylation, we can evaluate DNA methylation in different genomic contexts: transcriptional start sites with or without CpG islands, in gene bodies, at regulatory elements and at repeat sequences. The emerging picture is that the function of DNA methylation seems to vary with context, and the relationship between DNA methylation and transcription is more nuanced than we realized at first. Improving our understanding of the functions of DNA methylation is necessary for interpreting changes in this mark that are observed in diseases such as cancer.
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