Association of Aberrant Promoter Methylation Changes in the Suppressor of Cytokine Signaling 3 (SOCS3) Gene with Susceptibility to Crohn's Disease

Background: growing evidence supports that changes in the methylation state of in-flammatory bowel disease (ibd)-associated genes could significantly alter levels of gene expression, potentially contributing to disease onset and progression. we sup-posed that alterations in dna methylation status at promoter region within the sup-pressor of cytokine signaling 3 (socs3) gene in intestinal tissues may be involved in the susceptibility to crohn's disease (cd). methods: dna methylation status in the promoter region of the human socs3 gene of intestinal tissues from 15 patients with cd and 15 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were profiled using the real-time quantitative multiplex methylation specific pcr (qm-msp) assay. results: based on methylation assay data profiling, we found that patients with cd showed a higher degree of methylation of the socs3 gene promoter region than did the healthy controls (unmethylated dna in cd vs. healthy controls; 0.00048±0.0011 vs. 0.07±0.142, p<0.000). conclusion: the data presented here demonstrate that aberrant methylation of the cpg islands within promoter regions of socs3 gene in colonic mucosa of cd was asso-ciated with mucosal inflammatory status, providing insights into the involvement of methylation could contribute to the initiation of the inflammatory process and devel-opment of cd.