Fig. 5.

Allele and cell type-dependent methylation of the VSTM1 gene promoter. a Schematic overview of the analyzed 693 bp region of the VSTM1 gene locus (–1 to –388 upstream and +1 to +305 downstream to TSS). The location of a predicted CGI is indicated together with the position of individual CpG pairs (solid black lines); the CpG-SNP formed by rs612526 is indicated by a red box. The location of the first exon in the transcript variants of VSTM1 (covered in the C-methylation assay) is represented by solid blue vertical lines (the sequence of the 693 bp region is shown in Additional file 3). b Allele-independent C-methylation in neutrophils. The methylation of CpG pairs in the 693 bp region was analyzed by bisulfite sequencing. The methylation state of each CpG element is represented by circles (full circle: methylated, empty circle: demethylated); the location of the TSS as well as of rs612529 is indicated. The methylation state in the cells is shown as a set of three independently sequenced clones each obtained from four different donors of the rs612529 CC genotype (donors 1–4) and the TT genotype (donors 5–8). Red circles indicate CpG pairs of the constitutively demethylated core region. c Allele-dependent methylation in monocytes. The CpG-methylation state is shown for monocytes, which were isolated from the same donors described above for the neutrophils