Association of DNA methylation abnormalities with abnormal protein levels in the chorionic villi of spontaneous abortions

The similarity of pathogenesis mechanisms for pregnancy loss, preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction, and preterm birth due to abnormal placentation suggests the existence of common methylation patterns for various pathologies. Therefore, the aim of this study was to conduct a comparative analysis of DNA methylation abnormalities and their association with protein expression in chorionic villi from spontaneous abortions. The DNA methylation profiles of chorionic villi in cases of pregnancy loss and the aforementioned pathologies were obtained using reduced representation bisulfite sequencing and data sets from the Genome Expression Omnibus, respectively. Gene expression was determined by immunohistochemistry. The only commonly hypermethylated gene among the studied pathologies was CLEC16A. For spontaneous abortions (SA), 237 differentially methylated genes (DMGs) were identified. The GLI3, EGFR, CMIP, and PBRM1 genes showed differential expression in the chorionic villi of SA samples. Thus, a significant number of SA-specific DMGs were associated with changes in their expression. The functions of these identified genes suggest their role in the formation of lethal phenotypes.

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