DNA methylation analysis during neutrophilic granulopoiesis under ELF-MF exposure

To address whether ELF-MF influences the epigenetic landscape in differentiating haematopoietic cells, we performed an in vitro haematopoietic differentiation under powerline-simulating ELF-MF exposure (50 Hz, 1 mT, 5’ on/10’ off) in comparison to sham exposure (50 Hz, 7 µT, 5’ on/10’ off) or no exposure. We differentiated CD34+ cells (allcells, CB008F, lot: CBC121009M) isolated from human cord blood into the neutrophilic lineage, and performed genome-wide methylation analysis at single CpG sites of CD34+ cells and day 5 progenitors, using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation 450 platform. Exposure to ELF MF did not significantly impact the programming of DNA methylation pattern during granulopoiesis. However, ELF MF exposure has an influence on the robustness of the epigenetic landscape during global chromatin programming of granulopoiesis. Our data suggests that ELF MF has a stochastic effect on the epigenetic landscape of individual cells. Bisulphite converted DNA from CD34+ cells, sham and ELF-MF exposed neutrophilic progenitors in triplicates and not-exposed neutrophilic progenitors in duplicates were hybridised to the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation 450 Beadchip.