The HpaII tiny fragment Enrichment by Ligation-mediated PCR Assay (HELP Assay) is one of several techniques used for determining whether DNA has been methylated. The technique can be adapted to examine DNA methylation within and around individual genes, or it can be expanded to examine methylation in an entire genome. It was recently shown that cytosine methylation patterns tend to be concordant over short (~1 kb) regions. The patterns represented by the HpaII sites therefore tend to be representative of other CG dinucleotides locally.