Background: Mastocytosis is a clinically heterogeneous, usually acquired disease of the mast cells with a survival time that depends on the onset of the disease and ranges from skin-limited to systemic disease, including indolent and more aggressive variants. The crucial element in pathogenesis is the presence of oncogenic KIT somatic mutation D816V. Further epigenetic alterations are responsible for regulating the expression of genes. It is essential to identify indicators of disease progression, and the specific clinical picture to establish an appropriate therapeutic strategy.
Objective:The aim of this study was to analyze the relation of mastocytosis symptoms and epigenetic changes, and to identify epigenetic predictors of the disease.Methods: Global DNA methylation profile analysis was performed in peripheral blood collected from 73 patients with indolent systemic mastocytosis (ISM) and 43 healthy adult volunteers. Levels of 5-methylcytosine (5-mC) and 5hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) were determined using an ELISA-based method, while the methylation of the Alu and LINE-1 repeats were assayed with the quantitative methylation-specific PCR technique. A questionnaire interview was conducted among the study participants to collect data on possible epigenetic modifiers. Additionally, the methylation profile was compared between three human mast cell lines: ROSA KIT D816V, ROSA KIT WT, and HMC-1.1 KIT V560G, in order to assess the association between KIT mutations and methylation profile.
Results:A significantly lower level of DNA hydroxymethylation (5-hmC) in the blood was found in patients with ISM as compared to the controls (0.022% vs. 0.042%, p = 0.0001). Differences in the markers of global DNA methylation (5-mC, Alu, LINE-1) were not statistically significant, although they did indicate generally higher DNA methylation in patients with mastocytosis. The 5-hmC level was significantly associated with allergy (p = 0.011) in patients with ISM, showing aThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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