We generated and analyzed DNA methylation profiles covering the genomic loci of five cytokines (IL-1α, IL-6, IL-8, IL-4 and IL-10) and three transcription factors (NFkB, NFAT5 and STAT6) known to regulate these cytokines. Profiles were generated from T cells and monocytes of adult males with normal (control) and chronic physical aggressive (CPA) trajectories from childhood to late adolescence. The five cytokines were selected for profiling because they have been shown to have lower plasma levels in CPA adult males [32]. As describe above, previous studies have shown that WBCs DNA methylation is associated with environmental exposure and correlate with circulating cytokine levels [61], [63], [70]. Since WBCs comprise heterogeneous cell populations, which could mask cell-type specific methylation differences, we isolated and examined CD3+ T cells and monocytes since these cell types express the cytokines and transcription factors that were previously shown to be different in the CPA group. The profiles were generated using MeDIP followed by hybridization to microarrays with probes placed at 100 bp-spacing starting from about −40 Kb before the transcription start site of each gene of interest
