Atherosclerosis prediction by microarray-based DNA methylation analysis

Wei-da Chen; Ting Song; Qiu-Hong Cao; Rui Li; Hua Wang; Xiu-Bao Chen; Ze-Tao Chen

doi:10.3892/etm.2020.9025

Atherosclerosis prediction by microarray-based DNA methylation analysis

Exp Ther Med. 2020 Sep;20(3):2863-2869. doi: 10.3892/etm.2020.9025. Epub 2020 Jul 21.

Authors

Wei-da Chen^{1

2}, Ting Song², Qiu-Hong Cao³, Rui Li², Hua Wang², Xiu-Bao Chen², Ze-Tao Chen²

Affiliations

¹ Health Care Department, Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, Shandong 250355, P.R. China.
² Health Care Department, Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, Shandong 250011, P.R. China.
³ Department of Anesthesiology, Jinan Center Hospital, Jinan, Shandong 250013, P.R. China.

Abstract

Using a series of DNA methylation analysis, pathogenesis was investigated to identify the specific DNA methylation markers for diagnosing atherosclerosis. Firstly, with the chip platform of Illumina Human Methylation 450 BeadChip, a total of 1,458 CpGs, covering 971 differential methylated genes were extracted with stringent filtering criteria. Secondly, hierarchical clustering as a heat map was used to check on the dependability of differential methylated genes. Thirdly, the related GO terms and pathways were enriched by up- and down-methylated genes, respectively, after verifying the capacity of these differential methylated genes to distinguish between atherosclerosis and healthy controls. In total, 971 differential DNA methylated genes were identified (1,458 CpGs). Several important function regions were also identified, including cell adhesion, PI3K-Akt signaling pathway and transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter. This study indicates that patients with atherosclerosis have high levels of DNA methylation, which is promising for early diagnosis and treatment of atherosclerosis.

Keywords: DNA methylation; GO terms; atherosclerosis; pathways.