Epigenome-Wide Search for Distinctive Methylation Biomarkers of Endothelial and Leukocyte DNA

The endothelium, as the inner layer of the vascular wall, is in constant contact with blood components, so that leukocytes have the ability to adhere to endotheliocytes and penetrate to the subendothelial space. When studying heterogenic vascular samples containing endothelial cells or pathological processes related to inflammation within the endothelium, it may be necessary to distinguish DNA by endothelial and leukocyte origin, which is possible due to its specific epigenetic modifications. To identify CpG loci that could serve as markers for endothelial cells, we searched for their distinctive stable methylated or demethylated states by applying marginal filtering (selecting CpG loci with methylation Beta values closer to 0 and 1) to the microarray data and identified 47 CpG loci with relatively stable methylation/demethylation status that differentiate endothelial (HUVEC, HCMEC, HPAEC, HPMEC, and LSEC) DNA from leukocyte (granulocytes, monocytes, and lymphocytes) DNA. In addition, we compared CpG loci with high and low levels of DNA methylation between different types of endothelial cells and leukocytes. We believe that the obtained data will hopefully facilitate further studies on endothelial dysfunction.