High Throughput Screening Identifies SOX2 as a Super Pioneer Factor That Inhibits DNA Methylation Maintenance at Its Binding Sites

Using a highly parallelized approach to investigate pioneer transcription factor (PF) ability to bind methylated DNA and induce DNA demethylation, researchers showed the complex interdependence between DNA methylation and transcription factor binding; while some PFs did not affect the methylation status of their binding sites, they identified PFs that could protect DNA from methylation and others that could induce DNA demethylation at methylated binding sites.