Fig. 1

Intra-individual DNA methylation analysis reveals significant variability of epigenetic burden and relapse changes between CLL cases. a Dot plots showing the Pearson coefficient values (x-axis) representing the correlation of the MBC with the pre-treatment b values (left part, dark blue) and the correlation of the pre-treatment with the relapse b values (right part, light blue) of each CLL case (n = 34). b Density heatmaps displaying the frequencies of the b values for four selected CLL cases which showed the minimum and maximum Pearson R value after comparison of the b values of MBC (y-axis) and the pre-treatment state (x axis) which are depicted in (i) and (ii), and the b values of the relapse (y-axis) and pre-treatment state, which are depicted in (iii) and (iv). c Barplot, with each bar representing a different CLL case and showing the total number of DMCpGs related to the epigenetic burden (dark blue) plus the total number of DMCpGs related to relapse (light blue). d Barplots showing the percentage of hypermethylated (red color) and hypomethylated (green color) CpG sites at the relapse compared to the pre-treatment state, herein defined as relapse changes (RC), for all cases analyzed (upper part). The barplots in the lower part show the total number of the RCs for each case. Bars represent individual CLL cases