DNA methylation haplotypes as cancer markers/Reply

[...]across these regions, the average MHL value for each group was significantly different between the plasma samples from cancer patients and the test set of normal plasma samples (two-sample t test, one-sided; colon cancer: t = 7.4318, degrees of freedom (d.f.) = 1,018, P = 1.133 X 10-13; lung cancer: t = 8.8288, d.f. = 1,834, P = 2.2 X 10-16) (Supplementary Fig. 4). [...]using the standard curve determined by simulations, we estimated the tumor load of each cancer plasma sample. [...]the motivation for developing the concept of methylation haplotypes and MHBs was to investigate regions in the human genome that exhibit differences in CpG methylation patterns from one cell type (or cell state) to another. [...]MHBs and the MHL metric allow us to capture CpG methylation trends that are coordinated locally along single DNA molecules.