Endothelial cell-specific DNA methylation alterations in breast cancer

DNA methylation alterations are well-established contributors to carcinogenesis, yet, in the tumor microenvironment (TME), patterns of lineage and cell-specific methylation alterations are not well understood. Single-cell DNA methylation profiling in the TME is limited by technical challenges and high costs. Here, we use bulk DNA methylation, cell type deconvolution (HiTIMED), and an interaction testing framework (CellDMC) to identify reproducible, computationally inferred lineage-specific epigenetic alterations in the TME supported by orthogonal data sources. Tumor endothelial cells (TECs), critical regulators of angiogenesis, vascular permeability, and immune cell trafficking, acquire structural and functional abnormalities that promote tumor growth. We hypothesize that TECs have altered DNA methylation compared with endothelial cells in non-tumor tissues. In genome-scale methylation data from discovery and validation datasets (tumor n = 1071; non-tumor n = 415), we identify and validate >4500 TEC-specific CpGs with altered methylation, many mapping to genes involved in angiogenesis and endothelial function. Integration with gene expression data indicates that TEC-specific methylation alterations may reprogram transcriptional networks controlling angiogenesis. High-resolution, cell lineage-specific epigenetic landscapes can be inferred from bulk methylation data, implicating TEC-specific DNA methylation alterations as potential drivers of cancer angiogenesis and vascular dysfunction and providing a framework for future mechanistic and translational studies of the tumor vasculature.