Changing modified regions in the genome in hematopoietic stem cell differentiation.

In the process of hematopoietic stem cell (CD133+ cell) differentiation, a drastic change in gene expression occurs which must be regulated by epigenetic mechanisms. One strategy for CD133+ cell differentiation analysis is to identify genomic DNA regions that have been modified in the process of differentiation. However, it is difficult to obtain large amounts of genomic DNA from uniform CD133+ cells. Based on this situation, we screened genomic DNA regions where modifications change during the process of differentiation in human CD133+ cells using differential methylation site scanning (DMSS), which is a method of identifying differentially methylated regions of the genome from a small number of cells. As a result, we cloned three DNA fragments which corresponded to centrosomal protein 68kDA (Cep68), TRIO and F-actin binding protein (TRIOBP), and AMP-activated protein kinase beta (AMPKb).