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. 2022 Jan 3;40(5):720–730. doi: 10.1038/s41587-021-01109-w

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Fig. 1 — a, Illustration of the three possible methylation states at a specific CpG locus within a particular cell. A cell can either be homozygously (de)methylated or heterozygously methylated at that CpG locus. It is the spontaneous transitions between these states that allow methylation to act as a lineage tracing marker. b, Illustration of the link between the methylation status of a given CpG locus within a particular cell and the β value (the fraction of methylated DNA at that locus) associated with that cell. c, Graphical representation of how the methylation status in a small population of five stem cells at a particular CpG locus can change over time due to (1) methylation, (2) demethylation or (3) cell replacement. d, Methylation (β) distributions from an individual crypt; the peaks near 0% and 100% correspond to a clonal methylated or unmethylated CpG locus, respectively, whereas the peak at 50% corresponds both to clonal heterozygous CpG loci and subclonal populations caught mid-sweep.