Investigating epigenetic effects of activation-induced deaminase in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Activation induced deaminase (AID) has two distinct and well defined roles, both relying on its deoxycytidine (dC) deaminating function: one as a DNA mutator and another in DNA demethylation. In chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), AID was previously shown to be an independent negative prognostic factor. While there is substantial impact on DNA mutations, effects of AID on gene expression by promoter demethylation of disease related target genes in leukemia has not been addressed. To shed light on this question, we aimed at determining genome wide methylation changes as well as gene expression changes in response to AID expression in CLL. Although we found minor differences in individual methylation variable positions following AID expression, we could not find recurrent methylation changes of specific target sites or changes in global methylation.