Abstract
Hydroxymethylcytosine has been shown to be involved in DNA demethylation and gene expression. Although methods to determine the position of hydroxymethylcytosine at single-base resolution have been reported, these methods involve some difficulties. Here, we report a simple method to analyze hydroxymethylcytosine in the CpG sequence utilizing the maintenance DNA methylation activity of DNMT1, which selectively methylates hemi-methylated but not hemi-hydroxymethylated CpG sequences. The method enables monitoring of the dynamics of the hydroxymethylation state of a specific genome site.