Endothelial DNA methalytion signature in pulmonary arterial hypertension

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a severe and incurable pulmonary vascular disease. One of the primary origins of PAH is pulmonary endothelial dysfunction leading to vasoconstriction, aberrant angiogenesis and smooth muscle cell proliferation, endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition, thrombosis and inflammation. Our objective was to study the epigenetic variations in pulmonary endothelial cells (PEC) through a specific pattern of DNA methylation. DNA was extracted from cultured PEC from patients with idiopathic PAH (n=11), heritable PAH (n=10) and controls (n=18). ). DNA methylation was assessed using the Illumina HumanMethylation450 Assay. After normalization, samples and probes were clustered according to their methylation profile. Differential clusters were functionally analysed using bioinformatics tools.