Background: DNA methylation is involved in many gene functions such as gene‐silencing, X‐
inactivation, imprinting and stability of the gene. We recently found that some CpG islands …

The mechanisms that establish and maintain methylation patterns in the mammalian
genome are very poorly understood, even though perturbations of methylation patterns lead …

The fertilized mouse egg actively demethylates the paternal genome within a few hours after
fertilization, whereas the maternal genome is only passively demethylated by a replication …

The methylation status of three highly repeated sequences was studied in sperm, eggs and
preimplantation embryos with different combinations of parental chromosomes. High levels …

DNA methylation is extensively reprogrammed during the early phases of mammalian
development, yet genomic targets of this process are largely unknown. We optimized …

The genomic DNAs of vertebrates and many invertebrates contain 5-methylcytosine (5-
meCyt) as the only modified base (Table 10.1). Considerable interest in DNA methylation …

Programmed methylation and demethylation of regulatory sequences has been proposed to
play a central role in vertebrate development. We report here that the methylation status of …

In an ideal world, biological processes would be understood at the molecular level by first
identifying all the participating components and then by deducing their roles in the system …

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses DNA methylation in eukaryotic cells. DNA
methylation pattern undergoes discrete changes, especially during the process of …

Methylation of DNA, which occurs at cytosines of CpG sequences, is a unique chemical
modification of the vertebrate genome. Methylation patterns can be copied to daughter DNA …