Marian M De Pancorbo and Naiara G Bediaga
University of the Basque Country, Spain
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Neurochem Neuropharm
DNA methylation is a key epigenetic mechanism that plays a crucial role in transcriptional regulation and controls several neurobiological and cognitive processes and has been shown to be involved in neurogenesis and brain development, neuronal activity, memory formation, drug addiction and neurodegeneration. In fact, neurological diseases have been associated with dysregulated DNA methylated profiles as well as with mutations in DNA methyltransferases and methyl-CpG-binding proteins. Epigenomic landscapes are variable between cells and tissue types and, fluctuate in time according to a number of factors such as the age related, environmental or nutritional factors among others. The dynamism and tissue specificity of the epigenetic marks make specially challenging to design a successful epigenomic study, as opposed to the genomic studies of germline genetic variations, where the selection of tissue type or phenotyping of the sample is largely irrelevant. Thus, a key question for the current epigenetic studies concerns the degree to which easily accessible peripheral tissues (such as blood) can be used to ask questions about the epigenomic changes taking place in inaccessible tissues such as the brain. In the current study we have compared the methylation profiles in brain (cortex and hippocampus) and blood samples within the same individuals in order to create an inventory of epigenetic marks for which measurements in blood are informative for the brain tissue. The DNA methylation profiling of 13 matched cortex, hippocampus and whole blood samples was compared using the Illumina HumanMethylation27 DNA Analysis BeadChip assay.
Email: marian.mdepancorbo@ehu.eus
