DNA Demethylation Dynamics

By N. Bhutani, David M. Burns, Helen M. Blau. Cell, 2011

617 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The discovery of cytosine hydroxymethylation (5hmC) suggested a simple means of demethylating DNA and activating genes. Further experiments, however, unearthed an unexpectedly complex process, entailing both passive and active mechanisms of DNA demethylation by the ten-eleven translocation (TET) and AID/APOBEC families of enzymes. The consensus emerging from these studies is that removal of cytosine methylation in mammalian cells can occur by DNA repair. These reports highlight that in certain contexts DNA methylation is not fixed, but dynamic, requiring continuous regulation.

Subfields: Genetics, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a235450b75764f18de1e15ed73087e1eab46598f

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Citations in the corpus

• Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics: Two Sides of the Same Coin? (2012, background): “Active DNA demethylation is currently thought of as being a stepwise process—hydroxylation of 5mC (5hmC) by TET proteins followed by deamination by AID/ APOBEC protein or carboxylation and entry in to the subsequent base excision repair pathway (Bhutani et al., 2011).”
• Development and maintenance of regulatory T cells. (2013, background): “Genomic DNA is mainly methylated by DNA methyltransferases (Dnmt family members), whereas it can be demethylated bymultiple steps, includingmethylcytosine hydroxylation mediated by TET family members (Bhutani et al., 2011; Pastor et al., 2011).”
• RNA N6-methyladenosine methylation in post-transcriptional gene expression regulation (2015, background): “Both DNA and histone proteins undergo dynamic and reversible chemical modifications to control gene expression (Strahl and Allis 2000; Bird 2001; Suzuki and Bird 2008; Bhutani et al. 2011; Jones 2012; Kohli and Zhang 2013).”
• DNA Methylation and Its Basic Function (2013, background): “Although it is generally agreed upon that the BER pathway is the final step in DNA demethylation, the specific enzymes and the chemical intermediates that are formed during DNA demethylation are still debated (Bhutani et al, 2011).”