DNA methylation profiles of four immune cell types from MS patients and healthy controls

How epigenetic changes contribute to MS pathogenesis is still poorly understood. Therefore, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of genome-wide DNA methylation patterns in four immune cell populations isolated from MS patients at clinical disease onset. We also performed parallel transcriptome analysis in B cells to better understand the functional consequences of the DNA methylation changes in MS. Overall design: Four immune cell populations, namely CD4+ and CD8+T cells, CD14+ monocytes and CD19+ B cells, were FACS sorted from PBMC samples from a cohort of MS and HC subjects. Cell were then used for DNA extraction and DNA methylation profiling by bisulfite sequencing (BS-seq). The total RNA from B cell fractions were used for mRNA-seq.