The relationship between DNA methylation in neurotrophic genes and age as evidenced from three independent cohorts: differences by delirium status.

We previously reported the association between DNA methylation (DNAm) of pro-inflammatory cytokine genes and age. In addition, neurotrophic factors are known to be associated with age and neurocognitive disorders. Therefore, we hypothesized that DNAm of neurotrophic genes change with age, especially in delirium patients.

Epigenetics of neuroinflammation: Immune response, inflammatory response and cholinergic synaptic involvement evidenced by genome-wide DNA methylation analysis of delirious inpatients.

Previously our study has shown that the DNA methylation (DNAm) levels at CpG sites in the pro-inflammatory cytokine gene, TNF-alpha, decrease along with aging, suggesting the potential role of DNAm in aging and heightened inflammatory process leading to increased risk for delirium. However, DNAm differences between delirium cases and non-delirium controls have not been investigated directly. Therefore, we examined genome-wide DNAm differences in blood between patients with delirium and controls to identify useful epigenetic biomarkers for delirium.

Aberrant DNA methylation of p57KIP2 identifies a cell-cycle regulatory pathway with prognostic impact in adult acute lymphocytic leukemia.

P57KIP2 is a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor silenced in a variety of human malignancies. DNA methylation of a region surrounding the transcription start site of p57KIP2 was found in acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL)-derived cell lines. Methylation of this region correlated with gene silencing, and treatment of methylated/silenced cell lines with 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine resulted in gene re-expression.