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Medical AI Inquiry: You was designed to assist in medical decision-making based on the provided user questions. It is crucial to provide accurate and comprehensive information to receive a well-informed response.  Labels: BACKGROUND, RESULTS. Meshes: Base Sequence, CCCTC-Binding Factor, CpG Islands, DNA Methylation, Gene Expression Regulation, Genetic Variation, Genome, Human, HeLa Cells, Humans, K562 Cells, Molecular Sequence Data, Nucleotide Motifs, Protein Binding, Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid, Repressor Proteins.
user
Is functional diversity of CTCFs encoded in their binding motifs? Context: The CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) has diverse regulatory functions. However, the definitive characteristics of the CTCF binding motif required for its functional diversity still remains elusive. Here, we describe a new motif discovery workflow by which we have identified three CTCF binding motif variations with highly divergent functionalities. Supported by transcriptomic, epigenomic and chromatin-interactomic data, we show that the functional diversity of the CTCF binding motifs is strongly associated with their GC content, CpG dinucleotide coverage and relative DNA methylation level at the 12th position of the motifs. Further analysis suggested that the co-localization of cohesin, the key factor in cohesion of sister chromatids, is negatively correlated with the CpG coverage and the relative DNA methylation level at the 12th position. Finally, we present evidences for a hypothetical model in which chromatin interactions between promoters and distal regulatory regions are likely mediated by CTCFs binding to sequences with high CpG.
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These results demonstrate the existence of definitive CTCF binding motifs corresponding to CTCF's diverse functions, and that the functional diversity of the motifs is strongly associated with genetic and epigenetic features at the 12th position of the motifs. Final Decision: yes