Cord blood hematopoietic cells from preterm infants display altered DNA methylation patterns.

Background: Premature infants are highly vulnerable to infection. This is partly attributable to the preterm immune system, which differs from that of the term neonate in cell composition and function. Multiple studies have found differential DNA methylation (DNAm) between preterm and term infants' cord blood; however, interpretation of these studies is limited by the confounding factor of blood cell composition.

Characterizing the hypomethylated DNA methylation profile of nucleated red blood cells from cord blood.

Aim: To provide insight into fetal nucleated red blood cell (nRBC) development using genome-wide DNA methylation (DNAm) profiling.

Materials & Methods: The DNAm profile (Illumina 450K array) of cord blood (n = 7) derived nRBCs was compared with B cells, CD4 and CD8 T cells, natural killer cells, granulocytes, monocytes and placenta (n = 5).

Results: nRBCs and placenta had similarly low array-wide DNAm compared with white blood cells, but their patterns of hypomethylation differed at biologically relevant subsets of the array.

Nucleated red blood cells impact DNA methylation and expression analyses of cord blood hematopoietic cells.

Background: Genome-wide DNA methylation (DNAm) studies have proven extremely useful to understand human hematopoiesis. Due to their active DNA content, nucleated red blood cells (nRBCs) contribute to epigenetic and transcriptomic studies derived from whole cord blood. Genomic studies of cord blood hematopoietic cells isolated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) may be significantly altered by heterotopic interactions with nRBCs during conventional cell sorting.