where to find the list of genes known to be methylated - (Aug/21/2006 )

hi all. i am new to the field and would appreciate if u cud tell me of the procedure to find the online list of genes that are known to have CpG islands in the upstream of promoter regions and are methylated. it would be still better if i cud get the list of genes which show differential methylation between individuals or tissue types etc. the mvp viewer tool of the hep is useful but i have to go chromosome wise inwindows. please suggest. thanks

hi taprivesh,

it's very difficult to catlogue the methylation status of all promoters of genes for a simple reason becuase it has not been done. The HEP site is making progress but it is far from complete.

One site that you may look at is a catalogue of imprtined regions within the genome and it can be found here.

One reason for this complexity is that methylation of one cpg island associated with a gene could be methylated in one tissue type, say epithelial cells, but is unmethylated in another, say lymphocytes. And because it has not been fully done, there are not any good resources available yet.

In cancer, there are a list of gene promoters associated with cancer type that are hypermethylated and some that are hypomethylated, I am not aware of an online database yet, but just google CIMP (CpG island methylator phenotype) and Issa (one of the main drivers of this field of research) if you pubmed this you will find some useful review papers that list the genes.

good luck!

Nick

thanks a zillion for ur attention methylnick. this forum makes me feel at home with science