Basic polar and hydrophobic properties are the main characteristics that affect the binding of transcription factors to methylation sites.

Abstract

Methylation and transcription factors (TFs) are part of the mechanisms regulating gene expression. However, the numerous mechanisms regulating the interactions between methylation and TFs remain unknown. We employ machine-learning techniques to discover the characteristics of TFs that bind to methylation sites. The classical machine-learning analysis process focuses on improving the performance of the analysis method. Conversely, we focus on the functional properties of the TF sequences. We obtain the principal properties of TFs, namely, the basic polar and hydrophobic Ile amino acids affecting the interaction between TFs and methylated DNA. The recall of the positive instances is 0.878 when their basic polar value is >0.1743. Both basic polar and hydrophobic Ile amino acids distinguish 74% of TFs bound to methylation sites. Therefore, we infer that basic polar amino acids affect the interactions of TFs with methylation sites. Based on our results, the role of the hydrophobic Ile residue is consistent with that described in previous studies, and the basic polar amino acids may also be a key factor modulating the interactions between TFs and methylation. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.