Abstract:

Ｏｂｊｅｃｔｉｖｅ：To explore the epigenetic mechanism of diabetic nephropathy (DN).
Ｍｅｔｈｏｄｏｌｏｇｙ：Nine patients were enrolled into this study. They were divided into  three groups:DN patients,diabetes patients without nephropathy and normal controls.Kidney samples were collected.The difference of methylation level between three groups was analyzed using the method of whole genome bisulfite sequencing.The effects of differential methylation on diabetic nephropathy were investigated by combination with the transcription of kidney tissues of DN.
Ｒｅｓｕｌｔｓ：Global DNA methylation level of CpG was significantly higher in DN patients than in diabetes patients without nephropathy.The number of differentially methylated regions（DMR）between diabetic nephropathy and diabetes without nephropathy was also significantly increased.Results of Gene Ontology（GO） analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes（KEGG）enrichment analysis of genes related with identified DMR showed that focal adhesion was significantly enriched.Methylation levels of integrin family genes of diabetic nephropathy were obviously different from the diabetes without nephropathy.Results of correlation analysis between the methylation levels of DMRs and the expression levels of differentially expressed genes indicated that 90 DMR and 62 related genes had negative correlation with the expression of differentially expressed genes.
Ｃｏｎｃｌｕｓｉｏｎ：
DNA methylation profile was significantly changed in kidneys of diabetic nephropathy.DNA methylation may play a vital role in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy.

Key words: diabetic nephropathy, whole genome bisulfite sequencing, DNA methylation