gene expression level with methylation level, we are not attempting to absolutely link hypomethylation and gene expression. For instance in HCP, 3% genes are hypermethylated, while 76.6% are expressed. However, for individual genes, the expression level is dependent on the transcription factors that are recruited to the methylation sites. Our findings suggest that at the embryonic stage, DNA methylation has a stronger influence on HCP compared to LCP genes, and in our future studies we will extend this analysis to include activating and repressive histone marks associated with these promoter categories.
