Modeling Fanconi Anemia pathogenesis and therapeutics using integration-free patient iPSCs

To elucidate the transcriptional and epigenetic alterations underlying the neurogenic defects of FA-NSCs, we conducted gene expression microarray analysis and global DNA methylation profiling. The gene expression pattern of gene-corrected NSCs (C-FA-NSCs) resembled that of control-NSCs but clustered distantly from FA-NSCs (Fig. 6F and Table S1). Hierarchical clustering based on DNA methylation levels in the promoter region (+/-1.5kb from TSS) of genes whose expression levels were rescued in C-FA-NSCs, placed C-FA-NSCs closer to control-NSCs and away from FA-NSCs (Fig. 6G), although this pattern was not seen at the whole genome level (Fig. S4C). This suggests that FANCA gene correction leads to specific methylation changes in a subset of promoters. Examination of the methylomes of NSCs derived from Fanconi Anemia iPSCs before and after gene correction by targeted bisulfite sequencing with padlock probes