Dry and Wet Studies on the DNA Methylation and Transcription Factor Binding Sites of the Promotor Region of ASPP2 Gene

This paper performed the bioinformatic and experimental studies on the methylation and transcription factor(TF) binding sites(TFBS) of the promoter region of ASPP2 gene.The results revealed that there was a 1391-bp CpG island in this region,which containsed 37 TFBSs of 19 TFs.Morover,23 binding sites of 13 TFs contained CpG dinucleotide and 78% of them(18 sites) were predicted methylated.Therefore,ASPP2 was deduced as a typical CpG-island gene regulated by multiple TFs and the abnormal methylation in this CpG island could interfere the binding of TFs and down regulate the expression of ASPP2.The experimental detection of the methylation of a DNA fragment containing 4 E2F-binding sites in this CpG island of human hepatocarcinoma cell HepG2 and human fibroblast cell HFL-1 verified this bioinformatic prediction.This study demonstrate that the bioinformatic prediction of DNA methylation and TFBS in the promoter region of important genes can provide directions for the related wet experimental studies.