Quantifying epigenotype variations between mouse B and CD4+ T lymphocytes

Epigenetic mechanisms are involved in the acquisition and maintenance of cell type-specific gene expression programmes during development and differentiation. In order to identify and better classify abnormalities in the epigenome that are linked to pathological conditions, the epigenome of normal cell populations needs to be systematically characterized. We executed whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) and oxWGBS, to perform an integrative and comparative analysis of single-nucleotide 5-methylcytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) maps with histone marks and stranded RNA-seq profiles generated for normal ex-vivo primary populations of mouse quiescent B and naïve CD4+ T lymphocytes to unveil key epigenomic signatures characterizing these cell types in normal conditions. Recent studies have reported changes in the DNA methylation landscape associated with cancers and disorders of the immune system thus, these reference epigenomes can be used in comparative studies to identify disease associated epigenome alterations in these lymphocyte populations.