  This paper explores the transgenerational DNA methylation pattern (DNA
methylation transmitted from one generation to the next) via a clustering
approach. Beta regression is employed to model the transmission pattern from
parents to their offsprings at the population level. To facilitate this goal,
an expectation maximization algorithm for parameter estimation along with a BIC
criterion to determine the number of clusters is proposed. Applying our method
to the DNA methylation data composed of 4063 CpG sites of 41
mother-father-infant triads, we identified a set of CpG sites in which DNA
methylation transmission is dominated by fathers, while at a large number of
CpG sites, DNA methylation is mainly maternally transmitted to the offspring.
