Characterization of DNA Methylation in Short Tandem Repeats in Human Genome

Background: DNA methylation plays a critical role in the DNA regulation, which occurs mainly at the C5 position of CpG dinucleotides, and can be affected by environmental pollutants. Short Tandem Repeats (STRs) are repeating sequences of 2-6 base pairs of DNA in human genome. DNA methylation in certain STRs has been shown to contribute to the development of various diseases, including cancer. However, the characterization of DNA methylation in STRs throughout the human genome remains largely unknown. Aims: To characterize STRs cross the human genome using the Illumina HumanMethylation450 BeadChip (450K array), and estimate the correlation of DNA methylation with STRs. Methods: To locate the STRs associated with 450K probes, we adopted the 450K array to examine DNA methylation level throughout the genome using data from 80 healthy pesticide applicators, and retrieved STRs in the 1050 bps DNA region which included both 500 bps upstream and downstream DNA sequences of each probe. For each probe, we obtained ...