Genome-wide study of methylation profile of human cytotoxic CD4 T cells

The methylation profile of human cytotoxic CD4 T cells was compared to their naive counterpart, to central memory Th1 cells, and to naive and cytotoxic CD8 T cells in order to elucidate the epigenetic basis of cytotoxic differentiation in CD4 T cells. Total genomic DNA obtained from ex-vivo isolated blood lymphocytes of 5 CMV-seropositive healthy adults. For each subject, five populations were sorted: naive CD4, naive CD8, central memory CD4 Th1 cells, cytotoxic CD28- CD4 T cells and cytotoxic CD27- CD8 T cells.