Fig. 6.

Diversity of the methylation pattern of individual adenomatous crypts compared with the adenoma bulk. (A) Intracrypt diversity of normal and adenomatous crypts as a function of age is consistent with a model of neutral stem cell competition within crypts. Points are intracrypt diversity measured in normal crypts (blue circles) or adenomatous crypts (red triangles); the x-axis (age) jitter is artificial to allow all data points to be seen. Solid black line shows mean intracrypt diversity as predicted by the mathematical model with parameters as described in Materials and Methods; dashed lines are 95% quantiles for the simulation results. (B) Intracrypt distances (A) versus ICDs (I) for each adenoma. The mean ICD was greater than the intracrypt distance for all adenomas. Statistical comparison was performed using a Wilcox test: **P < 0.001, *P < 0.05. Unmarked pairs did not show a statistically significant difference.