Journal: Nature Medicine
Article Title: A potent epigenetic editor targeting human PCSK9 for durable reduction of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels
doi: 10.1038/s41591-025-03508-x
Figure Lengend Snippet: a . Activity of the LNP formulation with the top-ranked PCSK9 EE (PCSK9-EE) in PHHs isolated from chimeric mice with a humanized liver. Each point represents the average of three independent measurements of secreted PCSK9 protein levels at baseline and at 6 d and 15 d after treatment. Results are shown as mean ± s.d. PHHs treated with APOE only or LNP formulation containing the effector without gRNA (effector only) served as negative controls. b – f , Assessment of the specificity of PCSK9-EE was performed using PHHs obtained at 15 d after treatment. b , Specificity testing was assessed using RNA-seq on three independent replicates of each control condition (ApoE Only and Effector Only) and PCSK9-EE. On-target PCSK9 TPM from RNA-seq for each replicate are shown in the dot plot. c , Volcano plot of RNA-seq data comparing PCSK9-EE versus Effector Only control. Thresholds for differential expression: adjusted P value (DEseq2 Wald test, two-sided, Benjamini–Hochberg multiple comparisons adjustment) < 1×10 −5 , log 2 FC > 1 or log 2 FC < −1. PCSK9 is shown as a yellow circle; off-target (upregulated) DEG is shown as a navy blue circle; all other genes below the thresholds are shown as light blue circles. d , Specificity of methylation at CpG-enriched sites was measured using a Twist Human Methylome Hybrid Capture Methylation Sequencing assay. Volcano plot of CpG methylation comparing PCSK9-EE versus Effector Only control. Individual CpGs are colored according to whether they were called as a DMR at the PCSK9 locus (yellow), at an off-target genomic region (navy blue) or were not part of a DMR (light blue). DMR thresholds were set as P value (DSS Wald test, two-sided, unadjusted) < 1 × 10 −10 , beta value difference < −0.2 or beta value difference > 0.2. e , Manhattan plot of genome-wide methylation, as determined by a WGMS assay, comparing PCSK9-EE versus Effector Only control. Benjamini–Hochberg (false discovery rate (FDR)) adjusted P values for each CpG (DSS Wald test, two-sided) are plotted versus genomic coordinate for each CpG. Differentially methylated CpGs within the PCSK9 DMR are shown in yellow. The DMR threshold was set as P value (DSS Wald test, two-sided, unadjusted) < 1 × 10 −10 . f , Scatterplot showing methylation difference of DMRs from WGMS ( y axis) versus log 2 FC from RNA-seq ( x axis) of all genes within 20 kb of each DMR for the PCSK9-EE versus Effector Only control comparison. PCSK9 gene is shown in yellow. Thresholds (gray dashed lines) are set as methylation (beta value) difference > 0.2 or < −0.2, RNA-seq log 2 FC > 1 or < −1. DEG, differentially expressed gene.
Article Snippet: During the studies, the plasma of animals was collected periodically for analysis of circulating PCSK9 protein using the Simple Plex Human PCSK9 assay kit on Ella instrument (R&D Systems).
Techniques: Activity Assay, Formulation, Isolation, RNA Sequencing, Control, Quantitative Proteomics, Methylation, Sequencing, CpG Methylation Assay, Genome Wide, Comparison