Poster Presentation 47th Lorne Genome Conference 2026

DNA methylation reveals hidden cis-regulatory elements beyond chromatin accessibility during human development (#267)

Hengbin Gao 1
  1. University of Western Australia, Perth, DR (DOCTOR), Austria

DNA methylation, particularly CpG methylation, is a fundamental epigenetic modification that shapes tissue and organ diversity during human development. Chromatin accessibility, on the other hand, provides direct evidence for identifying cis-regulatory elements (cCREs) that control gene expression. In this study, we integrated bulk and single-cell DNA methylation datasets with ATAC-seq data to systematically identify candidate cCREs across human developmental stages. By comparing the regulatory elements detected by these two approaches, we found that DNA methylation-based analyses can reveal additional potential cis-regulatory regions beyond those captured by ATAC-seq, offering new insights into gene regulation during human development.