Chunk #43 — Results — Mecp2 isoform-specific expression correlates with DNA methylation at the Mecp2 regulatory elements

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Decitabine alters the expression of Mecp2 isoforms via dynamic DNA methylation at the Mecp2 regulatory elements in neural stem cells.

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First, we tested whether average DNA methylation of the entire Mecp2 promoter (R1 to R3), and intron 1 (R4 to R6) regions correlate with Mecp2e1 and Mecp2e2 expression at D2 in control and decitabine-treated cells. We observed a significant negative correlation between Mecp2e1 expression and the average methylation at R1, R3 and R5 (r > -0.9, P <0.05). Correlation between Mecp2e1 upregulation and significant demethylation at R5, induced by decitabine at D2, suggests a possible contribution of R5 in upregulating Mecp2e1. On the other hand, Mecp2e2 showed significant negative correlation only with R3 methylation (r > -0.9, P <0.05) (Figure 7A, a), that remained unchanged at D2, and this could explain the unaffected Mecp2e2 expression at D2.