Modulating immune cell fate and inflammation through CRISPR-mediated DNA methylation editing [DNA methylation arrays]

We assessed both on-target and off-target DNA methylation editing events following targeting with dCas9-DNMT3A to the IL1RN locus in cells undergoing B to macrophage transdifferentiation. We used DNA methylation arrays (Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC v2.0 Bead-Chip arrays) to study genome-wide DNA methylation changes in cells that underwent CRISPR-dCas9-DNMT3A-induced hypermethylation editing at the IL1RN promoter (sgIL1RN) during the C/EBPa-induced transdifferentiation of human B cells (BlaER) into macrophages. We compared these edited cells to non-edited cells (CTRL). The analysis was conducted at two different time points (0 hours -B cells- and 3 days) using biological quadruplicates.