Background There are no prior reports that compare differentially methylated regions of DNA in blood samples from COVID-19 patients to samples collected before the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic using a shared epigenotyping platform. We performed a genome-wide analysis of circulating blood DNA CpG methylation using the Infinium Human MethylationEPIC BeadChip on 124 blood samples from hospitalized COVID-19-positive and COVID-19-negative patients and compared these data with previously reported data from 39 healthy individuals collected before the pandemic. Prospective outcome measures such as COVID-19-GRAM risk-score and mortality were combined with methylation data. Results Global mean methylation levels did not differ between COVID-19 patients and healthy pre-pandemic controls. About 75% of acute illness-associated differentially methylated regions were located near gene promoter regions and were hypo-methylated in comparison with healthy pre-pandemic controls. Gene ontology analyses revealed terms associated with the immune response to viral infections and leukocyte activation; and disease ontology analyses revealed a predominance of autoimmune disorders. Among COVID-19-positive patients, worse outcomes were associated with a prevailing hyper-methylated status. Recursive feature elimination identified 77 differentially methylated positions predictive of COVID-19 severity measured by the GRAM-risk score. Conclusion Our data contribute to the awareness that DNA methylation may influence the expression of genes that regulate COVID-19 progression and represent a targetable process in that setting. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13148-021-01102-9.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, Gene Expression, Mortality, outcomes, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), DNA methylation, 【초록키워드】 viral infection, immune response, pandemic, Hospitalized, Human, COVID-19 severity, outcome, DNA, Region, Prospective, Patient, Ontology, disease, patients, platform, Blood, CpG, Methylation, Analysis, regulate, Autoimmune disorders, COVID-19 patient, Predictive, leukocyte, COVID-19 progression, supplementary material, These data, blood sample, outcome measure, circulating, promoter region, genome-wide analysis, controls, Result, not differ, performed, collected, healthy, reported, contribute, methylated, healthy individual, expression of gene, the SARS-CoV-2, 【제목키워드】 outcome,