DMMC Course: UNRAVELLING CHROMATIN & THE ROLE OF EPIGENETICS IN DISEASE

1030-1100 Tuesday 25 April 2006. UCD Conway Institute Lecture Theatre

DNA methylation
Dr Colum Walsh (School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulster)

Methyl groups are small chemical tags which are added to the cystosine in eukaryotic DNA after replication. This initially occurs in the early stages of development due to the action of one class of enzymes, called de novo methyltransferases. Later in life these disappear, but methylation is faithfully maintained by the action of the maintenance enzyme DNMT1. In this lecture, I will talk about what we know methylation is needed for, and its importance in development and in cancer. The role of the methyltransferase enzymes and the proteins which bind methylated DNA to interpret the signal will also be discussed.

Resources

References

Bestor, T. H. (2000). The DNA methyltransferases of mammals. Hum. Mol. Genet. 9, 2395-2402. PubMed Entry

Bird, A. (2002). DNA methylation patterns and epigenetic memory. Genes Dev. 16, 6-21. PubMed Entry

Eden, A., Gaudet, F., Waghmare, A. & Jaenisch, R. (2003). Chromosomal instability and tumors promoted by DNA hypomethylation. Science 300, 455. PubMed Entry

Ting, A. H. et al. (2004). CpG island hypermethylation is maintained in human colorectal cancer cells after RNAi-mediated depletion of DNMT1. Nat. Genet. 36, 582-584. PubMed Entry

Xu, G. L. et al. (1999). Chromosome instability and immunodeficiency syndrome caused by mutations in a DNA methyltransferase gene. Nature 402, 187-191. PubMed Entry

Walsh, C. P., Chaillet, J. R. & Bestor, T. H. (1998). Transcription of IAP endogenous retroviruses is constrained by cytosine methylation. Nat. Genet. 20, 116-117. PubMed Entry

Web Links

The Catalogue of Imprinted Genes and Parent-of-origin Effects in Humans and Animals: http://igc.otago.ac.nz/home.html

geneimprint.com: http://www.geneimprint.com/

The Epigenome Network of Excellence (NoE): http://www.epigenome-noe.net/