coMethDMR - Accurate identification of co-methylated and differentially methylated regions in epigenome-wide association studies

coMethDMR identifies genomic regions associated with continuous phenotypes by optimally leverages covariations among CpGs within predefined genomic regions. Instead of testing all CpGs within a genomic region, coMethDMR carries out an additional step that selects co-methylated sub-regions first without using any outcome information. Next, coMethDMR tests association between methylation within the sub-region and continuous phenotype using a random coefficient mixed effects model, which models both variations between CpG sites within the region and differential methylation simultaneously.