Impact of medical imaging on the epigenome – low-dose exposure in the course of computed tomography does not induce detectable changes of DNA-methylation profiles in peripheral blood cells

Figures & data

Figure 1. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering (Euclidean distance, Ward.D2 algorithm) using prefiltered DNA methylation estimates of all 24 Methyl-Seq experiments. Sample names include treatment (80 kV, 150 kV, DE and NULL) and healthy individuals (G1, G2 and G3). Healthy individuals are color coded in red (G1), green (G2) and blue (G3). The clustering analysis results in individual-specific clusters and a random distribution of the samples within each cluster without clearly distinguishable influence of the treatment.

Table 1. Inter-individual differences of DNA methylation and gene expression.

	Comparison of non-irradiated control samples
	G1 vs. G2	G1 vs. G3	G2 vs. G3
Number of DMRs	1224	4550	1163
Number of DMRs overlapping Ensembl genes	1021	3316	938
Differentially expressed genes	1348	2341	1678
Overlap among DEGs and DMRs with Ensembl gene mapping	67	438	88

Numbers of differentially methylated regions (DMRs), DMRs overlapping known Ensembl genes, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) from a previous study (Kaatsch et al. 2021) comparing non-irradiated control samples of each healthy individual and the overlap of differentially expressed genes with DMRs comprising Ensembl genes. Healthy individuals are indicated by G1, G2 and G3.

Kaatsch HL, Becker BV, Schüle S, Ostheim P, Nestler K, Jakobi J, Schäfer B, Hantke T, Brockmann MA, Abend M, et al. 2021. Gene expression changes and DNA damage after ex vivo exposure of peripheral blood cells to various CT photon spectra. Sci Rep. 11(1):12060.

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Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author (RU).