Hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy), which is an independent risk factor for atherosclerosis, might cause dysregulation of gene expression, but the characteristics and key links involved in its pathogenic mechanisms are still poorly understood. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of HHcy on DNA methylation and the underlying mechanism of homocysteine (Hcy)-induced DNA methylation. HHcy was induced in Sprague-Dawley rats after 4 weeks of a low, medium or high methionine diet. The levels of total homocysteine, S-adenosylmethionine (AdoMet) and S-adenosylhomocysteine (AdoHcy) were detected by high-performance liquid chromatography. The expression levels of genes and proteins of S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase, DNA methyltransferase and methyl-CpG-binding domain 2 were detected by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and Western blot analysis. A high-throughput quantitative methylation assay using fluorescence-based real-time polymerase chain reaction was employed to determine the levels of DNA methylation. The results indicated that HHcy induced the elevation of AdoHcy concentration, the decline of AdoMet concentration, the ratios of AdoMet/AdoHcy and the RNA and protein expression of S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase and methyl-CpG-binding domain 2, as well as an increase of DNA methyltransferase activity. With different methylation-dependent restriction endonucleases, the aberrant demethylation was found to prefer CCGG sequences to CpG islands. Increasing levels of HHcy significantly increased genome hypomethylation in B1 repetitive elements. The impacts of different levels of HHcy showed that the varied detrimental effects of HHcy could be attributed to different concentrations through different mechanisms. In mild and moderate HHcy, the Hcy might primarily influence the epigenetic regulation of gene expression through the interference of transferring methyl-group metabolism. However, at high Hcy concentrations, the impacts might be more injurious through oxidative stress, apoptosis and inflammation.

Homocysteine (Hcy) is an important and independent risk factor for arteriosclerosis, and apolipoprotein E (ApoE) is an important gene of anti atherosclerosis, but the characteristics and their key links that are involved in their pathogenic mechanisms are still poorly understood. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of Hcy and folate on ApoE as well as the underlying mechanism of ApoE expression induced by Hcy in monocytes. When clinically relevant concentrations of Hcy and folate were added to the cultured monocytes for 4 days, we found that clinically relevant Hcy (100 microM) may increase the levels of total cholesterol (TC), free cholesterol (FC), and cholesteryl ester (CE), and also decrease ApoE mRNA, protein expressions, leading to 34.28%, 45.00% in cultured primary human monocytes in comparison to the positive group. The effects of Hcy were primarily mediated by C-5 MTase, because Hcy could upregulate the activity of C-5 MTase and then accelerate DNA methylation of ApoE. However, folate decreased the levels of TC, FC, and CE (p < 0.001) and increased the ApoE expression; as to say, folate primarily repressed the effects of DNA methylation induced by Hcy and reduced anti atherosclerosis. In conclusion, these results suggested that ApoE DNA methylation that is induced by Hcy may play a potential role for ApoE expression in atherosclerosis. Folate has beneficial effects for anti atherosclerosis, and it may become a therapeutic target for preventing Hcy-induced atherosclerosis.

Homocysteine (Hcy) is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, but the molecular mechanisms causing atherosclerosis in monocytes remain poorly characterized. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of Hcy on DNA methylation of PPARalpha,gamma and the underlying mechanism of PPARalpha,gamma expression that was induced by Hcy in monocytes. About 50, 100, 200, and 500 microM Hcy were added to the monocytes cultured for 48 h. PPARalpha,gamma that acted as lipid sensors and bind with mM affinities to ligands of antiatherosclerosis were determined by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting in monocytes. Here, we used a high-throughput quantitative methylation assay that utilizes fluorescence-based real-time polymerase chain reaction to determine the levels of the PPARalpha,gamma DNA methylation. S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) level and S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH) level were detected by high performance liquid chromatography. Results indicated that the levels of PPARalpha,gamma promoter methylation in monocytes cultured with Hcy were increased in comparison with the control group, and the peak was in the 100 muM Hcy group, however, a dose-dependent increase with increasing Hcy was not seen. Hcy also decreased mRNA and protein levels of PPARalpha,gamma in monocytes. Further, with the addition of Hcy, the levels of SAH were elevated, the levels of SAM and the ratio of SAM/SAH were lower, and the activity of C-5MT-ase was increased. In conclusion, these results suggest that PPARalpha,gamma DNA methylation induced by Hcy may represent an important mechanism to explain atherosclerosis, which may become a therapeutic target for preventing atherosclerosis induced by Hcy.

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have realised that we made a number of serious errors.These errors relate to (1) inaccurate writing and textual discrepancies, particularly in the Materials and methods, (2) mislabelling of figures and inappropriate presentation of data and (3) re-use of western blot bands in Fig. 6B, some of which we previously published in a recent paper in DNA and Cell Biology (Yideng et al., 2007) to represent different samples.At the request of The Journal of Experimental Biology, an investigation into how these errors arose was carried out by a multi-disciplinary academic committee at Ningxia Medical College. Their findings were as follows: (1) the textual inaccuracies resulted from our carelessness and limited English language skills; (2) all images within the paper were obtained from our experimental results; and (3) the reuse of images resulted from unscientific file-naming conventions and negligence on the part of the corresponding author. During the period of completing this article, we kept copies of the images on both our office and home computers and also on portable hard disks. Due to our carelessness in file-naming, we mistook previous images that should have been deleted from our computers as images relating to the current article, resulting in the re-use of our previously published images and mislabelling of figures and inappropriate presentation of data.As a consequence, we wish to retract the paper (Yideng et al., 2008). In line with the recommendations of the committee, we also intend to repeat all experiments to verify the results.We have learnt many valuable lessons from this experience and sincerely apologise to the editors and readers for our carelessness.