Genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation associated with HIV infection based on a pair of monozygotic twins

Alteration of DNA methylation in mammalian cells could be elicited by many factors, including viral infections [1]. HIV has shown the ability to interact with host cellular factors to change the methylation status of some genes [2-4]. However, the change of the DNA methylation associated with HIV infection based on the whole genome has not been well illustrated. In this study, a unique pair of monozygotic twins was recruited: one of the twins was infected with HIV without further anti-retroviral therapy while the other one was healthy, which could be considered as a relatively ideal model for profiling the alterations of DNA methylation associated with HIV infection. Therefore, using methylated DNA immunoprecipitation-microarray method (MeDIP-microarray), we found the increased DNA methylation level in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from HIV infected twin compared to her normal sibling. Moreover, several distinguished differential methylation regions (DMRs) in HIV infected twin worth further study. The raw data has been deposited in Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets with reference number GSE68028.