Comparative DNA methylation and gene expression analysis identifies novel genes for structural congenital heart diseases. Homo sapiens

The most common congenital heart disease (CHD) is the ventricular septal defect (VSD), which is also a subfeature of Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) representing the most common form of cyanotic CHD. The underlying causes for the majority of CHDs are still unclear and most probably consist of combinations of genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors. DNA methylation is the most widely studied epigenetic modification and several cardiac regulators have already been shown to be differentially methylated in CHD patients. Here, we present the first analysis of genome-wide DNA methylation data obtained from cardiac biopsies of TOF and VSD patients. We applied affinity-based enrichment of methylated DNA sequences with methyl-CpG-binding domain proteins followed by next-generation sequencing (MBD-Seq). Overall design: MBD-seq on cardiac biopsies of patients with Tetralogy of Fallot and ventricular septal defect