Pluripotent Stem Cells Escape From Senescence-Associated DNA Methylation Changes [Illumina]

Pluripotent stem cells evade replicative senescence, whereas other primary cells lose their proliferation and differentiation potential after a limited number of cell divisions – and this is accompanied by specific senescence-associated DNA methylation (SA-DNAm) changes. Here, we investigate SA-DNAm changes in mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) upon long-term culture, irradiation-induced senescence, immortalization and reprogramming into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) using high density HumanMethylation450 BeadChips. SA-DNAm changes are highly reproducible and occur particularly in intergenic and non-promoter regions of developmental genes. We demonstrate that ionizing irradiation, although associated with a very similar senescence phenotype, does not affect SA-DNAm. Furthermore, overexpression of the catalytic subunit of the human telomerase (TERT) or conditional immortalization with a doxycycline-inducible system (TERT and SV40 TAg) result in telomere extension but do not influence SA-DNAm. In contrast, we demonstrate that reprogramming into iPSC prevented SA-DNAm changes. Our results indicate that replicative senescence is associated with an epigenetically controlled process which stalls cells in a particular differentiated state, whereas irradiation-induced senescence and immortalization are not causally related to this process. Absence of SA-DNAm in pluripotent cells may play a central role for their escape from cellular senescence. Samples were hybridised to the Illumina Infinium 450k Human Methylation Beadchip