Pan-cancer stratification of solid human epithelial tumors and cancer cell lines reveals commonalities and tissue-specific features of the CpG island methylator phenotype.

Background The term CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) has been used to describe widespread DNA hypermethylation at CpG-rich genomic regions affecting clinically distinct subsets of cancer patients. Even though there have been numerous studies of CIMP in individual cancer types, a uniform analysis across tissues is still lacking.