Application of DNA Methylome Analysis to Patients with ME/CFS

Abstract

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome is a post-viral/stressor syndrome that has a complex pathophysiology reflecting multiple changes in many cell transcripts and proteins. These changes imply a change in the regulation of gene expression at the level of the DNA. A significant contributor to this is the modulation of the methylation at specific sites within regulatory regions throughout the genome that can either enhance or dampen expression depending on whether methylation is reduced or increased, respectively. DNA methylation can be analyzed by array technology or by reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) or whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS). This chapter describes RRBS, which has been very effective at analyzing the methylation states of ME/CFS patients both in single time point studies and in longitudinal studies with individual patients, for example, following a relapse recovery cycle. Here, we describe the step-by-step experimental methodology of how RRBS has been applied to DNA samples from ME/CFS patients and the analytical platforms used to detect the methylation changes that are statistically significant between patients and health controls. It has the potential to provide molecular biomarkers for a diagnostic test or to follow the progression of the condition in patients or through relapse/recovery fluctuations that occur frequently through the ongoing course of the disease. When effective therapies become available it has the potential to monitor the effectiveness on individual patients under treatment.

Keywords: DNA methylome; Gene expression; ME/CFS; Reduced representation bisulfite sequencing; Regulatory DNA regions.