The targeted CAsp8AP2 methylation was also evidenced by bisulfite sequencing (Additional file 1: Figure S4) Successful targeted DNA methylation increased the methylation (Fig. 4c, upper panels) and reduced gene expression (Fig. 4c, lower panels) of Casp8AP2 in both MSCs and the breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231. Here, CASP8AP2 is linked to breast carcinoma.