DNA methylation stability in cardiac tissues kept at different temperatures and time intervals

Investigating DNA methylation (DNAm) in cardiac tissues is vital for epigenetic research in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). During cardiac surgery, biopsies may not be immediately stored due to a lack of human or technical resources at the collection site. Assessing DNAm stability in cardiac samples left in suboptimal conditions is crucial for applying DNAm analysis. We investigated the stability of DNAm in human cardiac tissues kept at 4 °C and 22 °C for periods of 1, 7, 14, and 28 days (exposed samples) using the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC v1.0 BeadChip Array. We observed high correlations between samples analysed immediately after tissue collection and exposed ones (R² > 0.992). Methylation levels were measured as β-values and median absolute β-value differences (|∆β|) ranged from 0.0093 to 0.0119 in all exposed samples. Pairwise differentially methylated position (DMP) analysis revealed no DMPs under 4 °C (fridge temperature) exposure for up to 28 days and 22 °C (room temperature) exposure for one day, while 3,437, 6,918, and 3,824 DMPs were observed for 22 °C samples at 7, 14, and 28 days, respectively. This study provides insights into the stability of genome-wide DNAm, showing that cardiac tissue can be used for reliable DNAm analysis even when stored suboptimally after surgery.