Fig. 4

The scatter plots of gene expression variations and DNA methylation variations for CpG markers located within the putative promoters. The X axis presented the gene expression variation determined with the HTA2.0 assay. The Y axis presented the DNA methylation variation determined with the M450K assay. Each dot denoted the regulation pair of one significant gene and one significant CpG marker; only those with a p value < 0.05 were concerned significant. For each comparison in each column, the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (denoted as rho) was labeled. The correlation coefficient was calculated with the data from the full-length promoter (the Both column), in the − 5000 to − 1 bp region (the Upstream column) and the + 1 to + 3000 bp region (the Downstream column). The sample size for sub-figures a to i were in order: 28,776, 3903, 61,055, 18,068, 2318, 36,770, 10,698, 1575, and 24,285