Applications of bioinformatics in epigenetics

Abstract

Epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation, post-translational chromatin modifications and non-coding RNA-mediated mechanisms are responsible for epigenetic inheritance. Change in gene expression due to these epigenetic modifications are responsible for new traits in different organisms leading to various diseases including cancer, diabetic kidney disease (DKD), diabetic nephropathy (DN) and renal fibrosis. Bioinformatics is an effective approach for epigenomic profiling. These epigenomic data can be analyzed by a large number of bioinformatics tools and software. Many databases are available online, which comprises huge amount of information regarding these modifications. Recent methodologies include many sequencing and analytical techniques to extrapolate different types of epigenetic data. This data can be used to design drugs against diseases linked to epigenetic modifications. This chapter briefly highlights different epigenetics databases (MethDB, REBASE, Pubmeth, MethPrimerDB, Histone Database, ChromDB, MeInfoText database, EpimiR, Methylome DB, and dbHiMo), and tools (compEpiTools, CpGProD, MethBlAST, EpiExplorer, and BiQ analyzer), which are being utilized to retrieve the data and mechanistically analysis of epigenetics modifications.

Keywords: DNA methylation; Epigenetic data; Epigenetics; In silico tools; Noncoding RNA; Post-translational modification.