SERS-Based Evaluation of the DNA Methylation Pattern Associated with Progression in Clonal Leukemogenesis of Down Syndrome

Here we show that surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) analysis captures the relative hypomethylation of DNA from patients with acute leukemia associated with Down syndrome (AL-DS) compared with patients diagnosed with transient leukemia associated with Down syndrome (TL-DS), an information inferred from the area under the SERS band at 1005 cm–1 attributed to 5-methycytosine. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis of the area under the SERS band at 1005 cm–1 yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.77 in differentiating between the AL-DS and TL-DS groups. In addition, we showed that DNA from patients with non-DS myeloproliferative neoplasm (non-DS-MPN) is hypomethylated compared to non-DS-AL, the area under the SERS band at 1005 cm–1 yielding an AUC of 0.78 in separating between non-DS-MPN and non-DS-AL. Overall, in this study, the area of the 1005 cm–1 DNA SERS marker band shows a stepwise decrease in DNA global methylation as cells progress from a pre-leukemia to a full-blown acute leukemia, highlighting thus the potential of SERS as an emerging method of analyzing the methylation landscape of DNA in the context of leukemia genesis and progression.