TF and cancer: By combining DNA methylation (from Illumina 450 K arrays) and gene expression data from 19 cancer type cohorts from TCGA [28] (Additional file 4: Table S1) with high-quality direct TF–DNA interactions (i.e. TFBSs) from the UniBind database [29], we assessed the correlation between DNA methylation and TF binding using TF expression as a surrogate for TF binding potential at their TFBSs.