Figure 9. DNA methylation coupled with chromatin remodeling during cell replication.

The methylation of newly incorporated cytosine residues in hemimethylated DNA following DNA replication is shown on the right, and is referred to as maintenance methylation. A novel process referred to as chromatin remodeling is shown on the left, in which parental strand DNA could actively lose or gain a methyl group by an unknown mechanism. This model could potentially explain why unenriched 5mC⁺⁰ residues are lost at a faster rate than could be attributed to DNA replication alone, and why enriched 5mC⁺³ residues increase faster than can be accounted for by DNA replication alone.