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Updated: Feb 23, 2026

Methyl-binding DNA capture Sequencing for Patient Tissues
Published on: October 31, 2016
Interethnic DNA methylation difference and its implications in pharmacoepigenetics
Shih-Kai Chu1,2,3, Hsin-Chou Yang1,2,4,5,6,7
1Bioinformatics Program, Taiwan International Graduate Program, Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan.
Aim:
This is the first systematic study to examine the population differentiation effect of DNA methylation on the treatment response and drug absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion in multiple tissue types and cancer types.
Materials & Methods:
We analyzed the whole methylome and transcriptome data of primary tumor tissues of four cancer types (breast, colon, head & neck and uterine corpus) and lymphoblastoid cell lines for African and European ancestry populations.
Results:
Ethnicity-associated CpG sites exhibited similar methylation patterns in the two studied populations, but the patterns differed between tumor tissues and lymphoblastoid cell lines. Ethnicity-associated CpG sites may have triggered gene expression, influenced drug absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion, and showed tumor-specific patterns of methylation and gene regulation.
Conclusion:
Ethnicity should be carefully accounted for in future pharmacoepigenetics research.
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