Figure 7
Cerebellum-specific methylation pattern of the ERV mch8 locus. A. The cytosine methylation profile of ERVmch8 in the cerebellum was compared to the methylation profile of an amalgamation of other brain compartments (cerebral cortex, corpus callosum, brain stem, hippocampus, and olfactory bulb). In particular, significant difference in the frequency of cytosine to thymine conversion (red half-circle) or in the frequency of no conversion (blue half-circle) in the cerebellum in comparison to the rest of the brain compartments is presented on both plus and minus strands. Open half-circle indicates no significant difference in the conversion frequency. Gray box identifies CpG dinucleotides. Start sites of U3 and R are indicated with an arrow. Plus strand cytosine residues of the ERVmch8 (minus strand of the chromosome orientation) are indicated by upward circles and minus strand with downward circles. B. The average number of converted cytosine residues in the ERVmch8 sequences isolated from the cerebellum was compared to the other brain compartments; values are summarized in a table and presented as a bar graph. N (number of sequences analyzed). C. Phylogenetic evaluation of the differentially converted ERVmch8 sequences was performed to compare the cytosine to thymine conversion profiles of the cerebellum and the other brain compartments. The bar on the left side of the tree represents the length of a nucleotide substitution per 100 residues.