Methylation and Chromatin Structure
- G. Felsenfeld,
- J. Nickol,
- M. Behe,
- J. McGhee, and
- D. Jackson
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
There is now persuasive evidence in many eukaryotes of an inverse correlation between the expression of a gene and the level of DNA methylation in the neighborhood of that gene (Felsenfeld and McGhee 1982). For a variety of globin genes, the herpes thymidine kinase gene, mouse metallothionein gene, adenoviral and immunoglobulin genes, and other genes, expression is accompanied by decreased methylation of cytosine at specific sites in or near the gene. Furthermore, direct transformation experiments reveal that DNA methylated either in vivo or in vitro is markedly or completely depressed in its transformation efficiency.
There are a number of ways in which methylation might have an effect on the ability of DNA to carry out its biological functions. The methylation of cytosine might alter DNA structure or, for other reasons, might cause DNA to interact differently with the histones so that chromatin structure or stability is altered. Methylation might also...
