Leukocytes methylome of individuals from leprosy endemic area

Inflammaging is the name given to this chronic and asymptomatic inflammatory state generated by the aging process and by chronic and infectious diseases. Chronic diseases can alter the epigenetic profile of tissues leading to an increased epigenetic aging and some of the differentially methylated genes can be used to characterize the disease and as disease biomarkers. Leprosy is an infection caused by Mycobacterium leprae and can be lifelong, exposing the individual to a low-grade inflammation environment. In this study, we evaluated the inflammatory profile in 35 individuals from a leprosy endemic area from Brazil by cytokine analysis with a luminex assay. In adition, we investigated the leucocytes genome-wide DNA methylation profile using the Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip array. A total number of 31 CpGs were significantly methylated, between cases and controls, which belonged to 8 genes potentially peripherally perturbed in the pathogenesis of the disease. Affected individuals from endemic area were epigenetically aged in relation to control samples and interesting control samples from endemic area were aged in relation to unaffected control samples from non-endemic area. In conclusion, leprosy showed a deregulated methylation profile in comparison with control samples. The epigenetic analysis provided valuable clues for further investigations in understanding peripherical blood leprosy alterations and the use of these genes as biomarkers. Illumina Infinium Methylation EPIC BeadChip array profiling performed on individuals from Leprosy endemic area