Visualizing and Identifying the DNA Methylation Markers in Breast Cancer Tumor Subtypes

Abstract

DNA methylation is an epigenetic mechanism that cells use to control gene expression. DNA methylation has become one of the hottest topics in cancer research, especially for abnormally hypermethylated tumor suppressor genes or hypomethylaed oncogenes research. The analysis of DNA methylation data determines the differential hypermethlated or hypomethylated genes that are candidate to be cancer biomarkers. Visualization the DNA methylation status may lead to discover new relationships between hypomethylated and hypermethylated genes, therefore this paper applied a mathematical modelling theory called formal concept analysis for visualizing DNA methylation status. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.