University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Prediction of Dna Methylation Based On Genomic Architecture and Applications of Positional Weight Matrices
Abstract
dc:description.abstract<p>Gene silencing due to epigenetic mechanisms shows evidence of significant contributions to cancer development. We hypothesis that the genetic architecture based on retrotransposon elements surrounding the transcription start site, plays an important role in the suppression and promotion of DNA methylation. In our investigation we found a high rate of SINE and LINEs retrotransposon elements near the transcription start site of unmethylated genes when compared to methylated genes. The presence of these elements were positively associated with promoter methylation, contrary to logical expectations, due to the malicious effects of retrotransposon elements which insert themselves randomly into the genome causing possible loss of gene function. In our genome wide analysis of human genes, results suggested that 22% of the genes in cancer were predicted to be methylation-prone; in cancer these genes are generally down-regulated and function in the development process. In summary, our investigation validated our hypothesis and showed that these widespread genomic elements in cancer are highly associated with promoter DNA methylation and may further participate in influencing epigenetic regulation.</p>
Degree
thesis:*- Name thesis:degree_name
- Masters of Science (MS)
- Level thesis:degree_level
- Thesis (MS)
- Year dc:date.available
- 2011
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Gallegos, Juan
- Contributors dc:contributor
-
- Shoudan Liang, Ph.D
- Thomas J. Goka, Ph.D
- Yuan Ji, Ph.D
Subjects
dc:subject × 5Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Repository record dc:identifier
- https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/utgsbs_dissertations/179
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu:utgsbs_dissertations-1210