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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Nov 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Genet. 2019 Aug 6;35(11):818–827. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2019.07.007

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of de novo and maintenance DNA methylation.

Figure 1.

Methylation of cytosines de novo is independent of existing 5mC and can be targeted to cytosines in CpG and non-CpG contexts. Recruitment of de novo cytosine methyltransferases is regulated by small RNAs and/or specific chromatin modifications. Maintenance methylation involves recognition of hemi-methylated CpG sites generated during DNA replication. Maintenance methyltransferases target CpG sequences on the newly synthesized strand to generate a fully methylated CpG site.