Aberrant epigenome in -derived dopaminergic neurons from Parkinson's disease patients

The epigenomic landscape of Parkinson's disease () remains unknown. We performed a genomewide methylation and a transcriptome studies in induced pluripotent stem cell ()-derived dopaminergic neurons (n) generated by cell reprogramming of somatic skin cells from patients with monogenic 2-associated (L2) or sporadic (), and healthy subjects. We observed extensive methylation changes in n, and of expression, which were common in L2 and . No significant methylation differences were present in parental skin cells, undifferentiated s nor -derived neural cultures not-enriched-in-n. These findings suggest the presence of molecular defects in somatic cells which manifest only upon differentiation into the n cells targeted in . The methylation profile from n, but not from controls, resembled that of neural cultures not-enriched-in-n indicating a failure to fully acquire the epigenetic identity own to healthy n in . The -associated hypermethylation was prominent in gene regulatory regions such as enhancers and was related to the and/or protein downregulation of a network of transcription factors relevant to (1, 3C1, 4A, and 2). Using a patient-specific -based n model, our study provides the first evidence that epigenetic deregulation is associated with monogenic and sporadic PD