Fig. 4

Distribution of gene expression in different clusters for in breast tissues. Gene expression distribution for genes based on the cluster assignment of their associated CGI + SS. Panel a Gene expression distribution in normal breast tissues shows a slight repression for genes associated with cluster 2 (hyper-methylated CGI + SS profiles). “Ref” represents the genome-wide gene expression distribution Panel b Gene expression profiles in cancerous breast tissues shows high repression for genes associated with cluster 3 and specifically cluster “3up” (hemi-methylated CGI + SS profiles). Panel c Gene expression profiles in both normal and cancerous breast tissues using the cluster assignement in cancerous tissues shows that genes associated with cluster “3up” in cancerous tissues define a cluster of genes already repressed in normal tissues