Figure 2. Bulk DNA methylation analysis of tissues can be representative of diverse biological phenomena.

Cell fate decisions in development are determined by spatially and temporally determined developmental cues. It is possible that cell fate decisions could be perturbed by the developmental environment. This may influence the DNA methylation profile in affected tissues due to a change in the cellular composition (left and middle panels). Alternatively, environmentally induced transcriptional perturbations in development could alter the epigenome in cis. In some cells, the changes might be stably maintained through subsequent differentiation and alter the permissiveness for gene expression in specific cell types, conferring altered cell function (left and right panels).