Long-Term Hypermethylation of in Leukocytes of Patients with Kawasaki Disease.

The Fc gamma receptor family contains several activating receptors and the only inhibitory receptor, . In this study, we investigated the dynamic methylation change of in different stages of Kawasaki disease (KD). We enrolled a total of 116 participants, which included patients with febrile diseases as controls and KD patients. Whole blood cells of KD patients were collected prior to intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment (KD1), three to seven days after IVIG (KD2), three weeks after IVIG treatment (KD3), six months after IVIG (KD4), and one year after IVIG treatment (KD5). In total, 76 KD patients provided samples in every stage. Leukocytes of controls were also recruited. We performed DNA extraction and pyrosequencing. methylation levels were higher in KD3 compared to both the controls and KD1. A significantly higher methylation of was found in KD5 when compared with KD1. methylation levels in the IVIG-resistant group were lower than those in the IVIG-responsive group at KD1-3 ( = 0.004, 0.004, 0.005 respectively). This study is the first to report the dynamic change of methylation and to demonstrate long-term hypermethylation one year after disease onset. Hypomethylation of is associated with IVIG resistance.