Epigenetic alterations in mouse muscle cells after in vitro treatments with COVID-19 and influenza vaccines

Year 2023, Volume: 19 Issue: 2, 121 - 130, 29.06.2023

Selcen Çelik Uzuner

Abstract

The importance of vaccination has come up again with a new form of coronavirus disease, COVID-19, which appeared in late 2019. This virus spread very fast around the globe, and it has numerous variants determined so far. Many studies focus on the effects of COVID-19 in humans and clinical-follow up after vaccination for the understanding whether the disease has been taken under control. Other studies mostly focus on omics analyses and molecular characteristics of COVID-19 itself. However, this is not clear whether COVID-19 vaccines induce epigenetic differences in the host tissues. This study aimed to reveal whether in vitro treatment of muscle cells with mRNA-based vaccine for COVID-19 and/or attenuated vaccines (whole virus attenuated for COVID-19 or split virion for quadrivalent influenza) can result in the changes in the global levels of DNA methylation (5meC) and/or DNA hydroxymethylation (5hmC). DNA methylation and DNA hydroxymethylation were individually detected by immunofluorescence and global patterns of epigenetic marks were analysed by fluorescence microscopy in rat muscle cells after the incubation with vaccines for 24h or 48h. Results showed that each type of attenuated vaccine induced epigenetic changes by different patterns, but the mRNA-based vaccine affected both global levels of 5meC and 5hmC in a similar manner. Findings indicate that vaccines can affect epigenome. These preliminary results suggest that epigenetic profiles of specific genes across different human tissues after vaccination may add further information, therefore, reveal biological significance in detail.

Keywords

COVID-19, coronavirus, influenza, vaccine, epigenetics, DNA methylation, DNA hydroxymethylation

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