WOLFRAM|DEMONSTRATIONS PROJECT

Kinetics of DNA Methylation in Eukaryotes

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methylate rate α
demethylate rate β
The methylation and demethylation of the 5-position in cytosine, which stops the expression of the gene in vertebrates, is passed along on one strand of DNA. The daughter cells may spontaneously methylate (at rate
α
) or demethylate (at rate
β
). At the
th
n
step of successive divisions, the probabilities of the cell having one, two, or none of its labile sites methylated are denoted by
X(n)
,
Y(n)
, and
Z(n)
, which give the proportion of homomethylated, hemi-methylated, and unmethylated sites, respectively, in generation
n
.