RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Bacterial Infection Remodels the DNA Methylation Landscape of Human Dendritic Cells JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 016022 DO 10.1101/016022 A1 Alain Pacis A1 Ludovic Tailleux A1 John Lambourne A1 Vania Yotova A1 Anne Dumaine A1 Anne Danckaert A1 Francesca Luca A1 Jean-Christophe Grenier A1 Kasper D Hansen A1 Brigitte Gicquel A1 Miao Yu A1 Athma Pai A1 Jenny Tung A1 Chuan He A1 Tomi Pastinen A1 Roger Pique-Regi A1 Yoav Gilad A1 Luis B Barreiro YR 2015 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/03/04/016022.abstract AB DNA methylation is thought to be robust to environmental perturbations on a short time scale. Here, we challenge that view by demonstrating that the infection of human dendritic cells (DCs) with a pathogenic bacteria is associated with rapid changes in methylation at thousands of loci. Infection-induced changes in methylation occur primarily at distal enhancer elements, including those associated with the activation of key immune-transcription factors and genes involved in the crosstalk between DCs and adaptive immunity. Active demethylation is associated with extensive epigenetic remodeling and is strongly predictive of changes in the expression levels of nearby genes. Collectively, our observations show that rapid changes in methylation play a previously unappreciated role in regulating the transcriptional response of DCs to infection.