Promoter methylation usually results in gene silencing. My question is, is the gene totally silenced with no production of mRNA and protein, or can there be grades of repression, with partial production of the related protein?
Would like some references, thanks
These has been several models proposed for this and this articles discuss it thoroughly. Article Molecular Mechanisms of Gene Silencing Mediated by DNA Methylation
If the two alleles are methylated inhibition should be total. If only one allele is methylated the production of transcript can decrease but inhibition will not be complete. Haploinsufficiency may create an effect similar to biallelic methylation even if only one allele is methylated. This is the case of pten.
you can have a look at this post from wikipedia and you'll have details for this purpose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_demethylation
fred
Hello Ajit,
Based on the evidences so far, there are grades of low or high repression, but, complete repression is highly speculative. Promoter region methylation causes gene repression either by recruitment of methyl-specific repressive factors or methyl molecule-mediated physical obstruction of transcription factor binding to promoter regions. In these both hypothetical scenarios, there is significantly low probability of 100% efficiency. Furthermore, epigenetic changes are in most cases reversible and this reversal can be mediated by multiple factors. Please see the attachments for further reference.
Anirudh
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