Expression and CpG island methylation pattern of MMP-2 and MMP-9 genes in patients with congenital factor XIII deficiency and intracranial hemorrhage.

OBJECTIVES

Congenital factor XIII (FXIII) deficiency is a rare severe bleeding disorder. Intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in FXIII deficiency. However, its pathogenesis is not well understood yet. In this study, we investigated the expression and CpG island methylation status of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) and MMP-9 in patients with FXIII deficiency and ICH.

METHODS

Forty patients with FXIII deficiency including twenty patients with ICH, and twenty without ICH were recruited as case and control groups, respectively. Methylation status was determined by bisulfite sequencing polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and gene expression was assessed by quantitative real-time PCR.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

We found an unmethylated pattern for both and genes in the case group. Both genes were partially methylated in the control group, while the percentage of methylated CpGs was significantly higher in than ( = 0.001). Furthermore, higher expression of (in both the mRNA and protein levels) was found in the case than control group ( = 0.008 and  = 0.009, respectively). On the other hand, there was no significant difference in expression level (neither mRNA nor protein) between the two groups ( = 0.12 and  = 0.25, respectively).

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicated that over-expression might be related to ICH in FXIII deficiency, and gene methylation effectively regulates its expression. Future researches will expand our understanding of the pathogenesis of ICH in congenital FXIII deficiency.