I'm studying a gene whose expression is regulated by DNA methylation. Cancer cell lines that express this gene show strong hypomethylation, while cells lines that don't express it show hypermethylation. It's also from a family of genes (LY6 family) that are nearly all regulated by DNA methylation. I've confirmed this methylation profile with bisulfite sequencing.
In cells that don't normally express it (hypermethylated cells), I see a strong (~20 fold) increase in expression following radiation treatment. I hypothesized that this was due to changes in methylation. But when I did bisulfite sequencing on irradiated cells, I see that they are still methylated.
Is there any mechanism (besides methylation) that can explain this? I'd really appreciate any help! Thanks!
It is a remarkable result that exposure to radiation reactivates a gene originally silenced by promoter methylation in your cell model. I suppose, the time needed to activate transcription was relatively short (
Thanks Andriy and Rejane. I'll try again with new samples (the DNA I used was quite old) and see what I get then. If that doesn't work, then I'll consider looking into Pol 2 and other TFs and promoters. Thanks!!
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