Year: 2022
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Epigenetic modifications, in particular DNA methylation, are one of the age-dependent factors in the human body.It accumulates over time and in certain genomic regions, it acts as a biomarker for ageing while modifications in some other regions could be used to estimate immune system status.More specifically, each cell type has its own characteristic epigenetic profile and when a certain region is only methylated/demethylated in this particular region and the reverse is true for the rest of the cell types, it is possible to associate DNA methylation in the whole blood with given cell type levels.To this end, whole blood from donors of various ages (from 20 to 99 years of age) was used for sequencing of bisulfite-treated DNA sequences of CpGs of interest.In addition, isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells were used to determine the levels of cell populations selected for the modelling task.After that, the data were combined with previously existing data, and subsequently, a model for predicting the proportions of the cell type of interest was built.This work shows the possibility of using DNA methylation for determining the levels of Temra cells and suggests the possibility to use epigenetic models as alternatives to flow cytometry.
Author: Elsakova, Alexandra
Language: English
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7019575833