Epigenome analysis of statin-treated SGBS pre-adipocytes during differentiation

We investigated the role of statin treatment in adipocyte differentiation by using the in vitro pre-adipocyte SGBS cell line. We found that statins induced a reduction in adipogenesis by decreasing the mRNA expression of key transcriptional regulators, such as ADIPOQ and GLUT4. Therefore, we analysed the whole methylome of statin-treated cells, compared to DMSO-vehicle controls, using the 850K methylation arrays (Illumina) to identify putative effective genes. Human pre-adipocyte SGBS cell line was differentiatied using standard protocol. The cells were treated with either 10 µM mevastatin, 10 µM atorvastatin or DMSO-vehicle control at day 6 of differentiation and continued until adipocyte maturation (day 12). This experiment was performed in 4 biological replicates. At day 12, DNA was isolated from the cells and methylation arrays were performed.