The ability to site-specifically methylate DNA in vivo would have wide applicability to the study of basic biomedical problems as well as enable studies on the potential of site-specific DNA methylation as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of diseases that
Enzastaurin involve abnormal hypomethylation of DNA [2], [3] and [4]. A site-specific DNA methyltransferase would be useful (1) as a tool for studying DNA methylation and the spread of methylation patterns, (2) as a molecular biological tool for silencing genes of interest, and (3) as a potential gene-therapy agent for the selective silencing of genes. The molecular tools to carry out truly site-specific control of DNA methylation do not exist. Existing approaches involving the end-to-end fusion of methyltransferases and DNA-binding domains at best create
enzymes with preferences for methylation at target sites [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] and [9] presumably because the methyltransferases remain active in the absence of the DNA-binding domain binding to its target site.
