An empirically driven data reduction method on the human 450K methylation array to remove tissue specific non-variable CpGs

Background: Population based epigenetic association studies of disease and exposures are becoming more common with the availability of economical genome-wide technologies for interrogation of the methylome, such as the Illumina 450K Human Methylation Array (450K). Often, the expected small number of differentially methylated cytosine-guanine pairs (CpGs) in studies of the human methylome presents a statistical challenge, as the large number of CpGs measured on the 450K necessitates careful multiple test correction. While the 450K is a highly useful tool for population epigenetic studies, many of the CpGs tested are not variable and thus of limited information content in the context of the study and tissue. CpGs with observed lack of variability in the tissue under study could be removed to reduce the data dimensionality, limit the severity of multiple test correction and allow for improved detection of differential DNA methylation. Methods: Here, we performed a meta-analysis of 450K data from three commonly studied human tissues, namely blood (605 samples), buccal epithelial cells (121 samples) and placenta (157 samples). We developed lists of CpGs that are non-variable in each tissue. Results: These lists are surprisingly large (blood 114,204 CpGs, buccal epithelial cells 120,009 CpGs and placenta 101,367 CpGs) and thus will be valuable filters for epigenetic association studies, considerably reducing the dimensionality of the 450K and subsequently the multiple testing correction severity. Conclusions: We propose this empirically derived method for data reduction to allow for more power in detecting differential DNA methylation associated with exposures in studies on the human methylome.Medicine, Faculty ofOther UBCMedical Genetics, Department ofReviewedFacult

Population-specificity of human DNA methylation

Background: Ethnic differences in human DNA methylation have been shown for a number of CpG sites, but the genome-wide patterns and extent of these differences are largely unknown. In addition, whether the genetic control of polymorphic DNA methylation is population-specific has not been investigated. Results: Here we measure DNA methylation near the transcription start sites of over 14, 000 genes in 180 cell lines derived from one African and one European population. We find population-specific patterns of DNA methylation at over a third of all genes. Furthermore, although the methylation at over a thousand CpG sites is heritable, these heritabilities also differ between populations, suggesting extensive divergence in the genetic control of DNA methylation. In support of this, genetic mapping of DNA methylation reveals that most of the population specificity can be explained by divergence in allele frequencies between populations, and that there is little overlap in genetic associations between populations. These population-specific genetic associations are supported by the patterns of DNA methylation in several hundred brain samples, suggesting that they hold in vivo and across tissues. Conclusions: These results suggest that DNA methylation is highly divergent between populations, and that this divergence may be due in large part to a combination of differences in allele frequencies and complex epistasis or gene × environment interactions.Medical Genetics, Department ofMedicine, Faculty ofMolecular Medicine and Therapeutics, Centre forNon UBCReviewedFacult

Short-term diesel exhaust inhalation in a controlled human crossover study is associated with changes in DNA methylation of circulating mononuclear cells in asthmatics

Background: Changes in DNA methylation have been associated with traffic-related air pollution in observational studies, but the specific mechanisms and temporal dynamics therein have not been explored in a controlled study of asthmatics. In this study, we investigate short-term effects of diesel exhaust inhalation on DNA methylation levels at CpG sites across the genome in circulating blood in asthmatics. Methods A double-blind crossover study of filtered air and diesel exhaust exposures was performed on sixteen non-smoking asthmatic subjects. Blood samples were collected pre-exposure, and then 6 and 30 hours post-exposure. Peripheral blood mononuclear cell DNA methylation was interrogated using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 Array. Exposure-related changes in DNA methylation were identified. In addition, CpG sites overlapping with Alu or LINE1 repetitive elements and candidate microRNA loci were also analyzed. Results DNA methylation at 2827 CpG sites were affected by exposure to diesel exhaust but not filtered air; these sites enriched for genes involved in protein kinase and NFkB pathways. CpG sites with significant changes in response to diesel exhaust exposure primarily became less methylated, with a site residing within GSTP1 being among the significant hits. Diesel exhaust-associated change was also found for CpG sites overlapping with Alu and LINE1 elements as well as for a site within miR-21. Conclusion Short-term exposure to diesel exhaust resulted in DNA methylation changes at CpG sites residing in genes involved in inflammation and oxidative stress response, repetitive elements, and microRNA. This provides plausibility for the role of DNA methylation in pathways by which airborne particulate matter impacts gene expression and offers support for including DNA methylation analysis in future efforts to understand the interactions between environmental exposures and biological systems.Medicine, Department ofMolecular Medicine and Therapeutics, Centre forPopulation and Public Health (SPPH), School ofMedicine, Faculty ofNon UBCReviewedFacult

Concordant and discordant DNA methylation signatures of aging in human blood and brain

Background. DNA methylation is an epigenetic mark that balances plasticity with stability. While DNA methylation exhibits tissue specificity, it can also vary with age and potentially environmental exposures. In studies of DNA methylation, samples from specific tissues, especially brain, are frequently limited and so surrogate tissues are often used. As yet, we do not fully understand how DNA methylation profiles of these surrogate tissues relate to the profiles of the central tissue of interest. Results We have adapted principal component analysis to analyze data from the Illumina 450K Human Methylation array using a set of 17 individuals with 3 brain regions and whole blood. All of the top five principal components in our analysis were associated with a variable of interest: principal component 1 (PC1) differentiated brain from blood, PCs 2 and 3 were representative of tissue composition within brain and blood, respectively, and PCs 4 and 5 were associated with age of the individual (PC4 in brain and PC5 in both brain and blood). We validated our age-related PCs in four independent sample sets, including additional brain and blood samples and liver and buccal cells. Gene ontology analysis of all five PCs showed enrichment for processes that inform on the functions of each PC. Conclusions Principal component analysis (PCA) allows simultaneous and independent analysis of tissue composition and other phenotypes of interest. We discovered an epigenetic signature of age that is not associated with cell type composition and required no correction for cellular heterogeneity.Medical Genetics, Department ofMedicine, Faculty ofMolecular Medicine and Therapeutics, Centre forNon UBCReviewedFacult

Prenatal Adversity Alters the Epigenetic Profile of the Prefrontal Cortex: Sexually Dimorphic Effects of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure and Food-Related Stress

Prenatal adversity or stress can have long-term consequences on developmental trajectories and health outcomes. Although the biological mechanisms underlying these effects are poorly understood, epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation, have the potential to link early-life environments to alterations in physiological systems, with long-term functional implications. We investigated the consequences of two prenatal insults, prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) and food-related stress, on DNA methylation profiles of the rat brain during early development. As these insults can have sex-specific effects on biological outcomes, we analyzed epigenome-wide DNA methylation patterns in prefrontal cortex, a key brain region involved in cognition, executive function, and behavior, of both males and females. We found sex-dependent and sex-concordant influences of these insults on epigenetic patterns. These alterations occurred in genes and pathways related to brain development and immune function, suggesting that PAE and food-related stress may reprogram neurobiological/physiological systems partly through central epigenetic changes, and may do so in a sex-dependent manner. Such epigenetic changes may reflect the sex-specific effects of prenatal insults on long-term functional and health outcomes and have important implications for understanding possible mechanisms underlying fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental disorders.Medicine, Faculty ofScience, Faculty ofNon UBCCellular and Physiological Sciences, Department ofMedical Genetics, Department ofMicrobiology and Immunology, Department ofPhysical Therapy, Department ofReviewedFacultyResearcherOthe

Epigenetic age is associated with baseline and 3-year change in frailty in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

Background The trajectory of frailty in older adults is important to public health; therefore, markers that may help predict this and other important outcomes could be beneficial. Epigenetic clocks have been developed and are associated with various health-related outcomes and sociodemographic factors, but associations with frailty are poorly described. Further, it is uncertain whether newer generations of epigenetic clocks, trained on variables other than chronological age, would be more strongly associated with frailty than earlier developed clocks. Using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), we tested the hypothesis that clocks trained on phenotypic markers of health or mortality (i.e., Dunedin PoAm, GrimAge, PhenoAge and Zhang in Nat Commun 8:14617, 2017) would best predict changes in a 76-item frailty index (FI) over a 3-year interval, as compared to clocks trained on chronological age (i.e., Hannum in Mol Cell 49:359–367, 2013, Horvath in Genome Biol 14:R115, 2013, Lin in Aging 8:394–401, 2016, and Yang Genome Biol 17:205, 2016). Results We show that in 1446 participants, phenotype/mortality-trained clocks outperformed age-trained clocks with regard to the association with baseline frailty (mean = 0.141, SD = 0.075), the greatest of which is GrimAge, where a 1-SD increase in ΔGrimAge (i.e., the difference from chronological age) was associated with a 0.020 increase in frailty (95% CI 0.016, 0.024), or ~ 27% relative to the SD in frailty. Only GrimAge and Hannum (Mol Cell 49:359–367, 2013) were significantly associated with change in frailty over time, where a 1-SD increase in ΔGrimAge and ΔHannum 2013 was associated with a 0.0030 (95% CI 0.0007, 0.0050) and 0.0028 (95% CI 0.0007, 0.0050) increase over 3 years, respectively, or ~ 7% relative to the SD in frailty change. Conclusion Both prevalence and change in frailty are associated with increased epigenetic age. However, not all clocks are equally sensitive to these outcomes and depend on their underlying relationship with chronological age, healthspan and lifespan. Certain clocks were significantly associated with relatively short-term changes in frailty, thereby supporting their utility in initiatives and interventions to promote healthy aging.Medicine, Faculty ofOther UBCNon UBCReviewedFacult

The relation between DNA methylation patterns and serum cytokine levels in community-dwelling adults: a preliminary study

Background: The levels of circulating cytokines fluctuate with age, acute illness, and chronic disease, and are predictive of mortality; this is also true for patterns of DNA (CpG) methylation. Given that immune cells are particularly sensitive to changes in the concentration of cytokines in their microenvironment, we hypothesized that serum levels of TNF, IL-6, IL-8 and IL-10 would correlate with genome-wide alterations in the DNA methylation levels of blood leukocytes. To test this, we evaluated community-dwelling adults (n = 14; 48–78 years old) recruited to a pilot study for the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), examining DNA methylation patterns in peripheral blood mononuclear cells using the Illumina HumanMethylation 450 K BeadChip. Results: We show that, apart from age, serum IL-10 levels exhibited the most substantial association to DNA methylation patterns, followed by TNF, IL-6 and IL-8. Furthermore, while the levels of these cytokines were higher in elderly adults, no associations with epigenetic accelerated aging, derived using the epigenetic clock, were observed. Conclusions: As a preliminary study with a small sample size, the conclusions drawn from this work must be viewed with caution; however, our observations are encouraging and certainly warrant more suitably powered studies of this relationship.Medicine, Faculty ofOther UBCNon UBCMedical Genetics, Department ofReviewedFacult

Extensive epigenetic reprogramming in human somatic tissues between fetus and adult

Background: Development of human tissue is influenced by a combination of intrinsic biological signals and extrinsic environmental stimuli, both of which are mediated by epigenetic regulation, including DNA methylation. However, little is currently known of the normal acquisition or loss of epigenetic markers during fetal and postnatal development. Results: The DNA methylation status of over 1000 CpGs located in the regulatory regions of nearly 800 genes was evaluated in five somatic tissues (brain, kidney, lung, muscle and skin) from eight normal second-trimester fetuses. Tissue-specific differentially methylated regions (tDMRs) were identified in 195 such loci. However, comparison with corresponding data from trisomic fetuses (five trisomy 21 and four trisomy 18) revealed relatively few DNA methylation differences associated with trisomy, despite such conditions having a profound effect on development. Of interest, only 17% of the identified fetal tDMRs were found to maintain this same tissue-specific DNA methylation in adult tissues. Furthermore, 10% of the sites analyzed, including sites associated with imprinted genes, had a DNA methylation difference of >40% between fetus and adult. This plasticity of DNA methylation over development was further confirmed by comparison with similar data from embryonic stem cells, with the most altered methylation levels being linked to domains with bivalent histone modifications. Conclusions: Most fetal tDMRs seem to reflect transient DNA methylation changes during development rather than permanent epigenetic signatures. The extensive tissue-specific and developmental-stage specific nature of DNA methylation will need to be elucidated to identify abnormal patterns of DNA methylation associated with abnormal development or disease.Medical Genetics, Department ofMedicine, Faculty ofPathology and Laboratory Medicine, Department ofReviewedFacult

Integration of DNA methylation patterns and genetic variation in human pediatric tissues help inform EWAS design and interpretation

Background: The widespread use of accessible peripheral tissues for epigenetic analyses has prompted increasing interest in the study of tissue-specific DNA methylation (DNAm) variation in human populations. To date, characterizations of inter-individual DNAm variability and DNAm concordance across tissues have been largely performed in adult tissues and therefore are limited in their relevance to DNAm profiles from pediatric samples. Given that DNAm patterns in early life undergo rapid changes and have been linked to a wide range of health outcomes and environmental exposures, direct investigations of tissue-specific DNAm variation in pediatric samples may help inform the design and interpretation of DNAm analyses from early life cohorts. In this study, we present a systematic comparison of genome-wide DNAm patterns between matched pediatric buccal epithelial cells (BECs) and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), two of the most widely used peripheral tissues in human epigenetic studies. Specifically, we assessed DNAm variability, cross-tissue DNAm concordance and genetic determinants of DNAm across two independent early life cohorts encompassing different ages. Results: BECs had greater inter-individual DNAm variability compared to PBMCs and highly the variable CpGs are more likely to be positively correlated between the matched tissues compared to less variable CpGs. These sites were enriched for CpGs under genetic influence, suggesting that a substantial proportion of DNAm covariation between tissues can be attributed to genetic variation. Finally, we demonstrated the relevance of our findings to human epigenetic studies by categorizing CpGs from published DNAm association studies of pediatric BECs and peripheral blood. Conclusions: Taken together, our results highlight a number of important considerations and practical implications in the design and interpretation of EWAS analyses performed in pediatric peripheral tissues.Medicine, Faculty ofOther UBCNon UBCMedical Genetics, Department ofPediatrics, Department ofReviewedFacult

Additional annotation enhances potential for biologically-relevant analysis of the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip array

Background. Measurement of genome-wide DNA methylation (DNAm) has become an important avenue for investigating potential physiologically-relevant epigenetic changes. Illumina Infinium (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA) is a commercially available microarray suite used to measure DNAm at many sites throughout the genome. However, it has been suggested that a subset of array probes may give misleading results due to issues related to probe design. To facilitate biologically significant data interpretation, we set out to enhance probe annotation of the newest Infinium array, the HumanMethylation450 BeadChip (450 k), with >485,000 probes covering 99% of Reference Sequence (RefSeq) genes (National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Bethesda, MD, USA). Annotation that was added or expanded on includes: 1) documented SNPs in the probe target, 2) probe binding specificity, 3) CpG classification of target sites and 4) gene feature classification of target sites. Results Probes with documented SNPs at the target CpG (4.3% of probes) were associated with increased within-tissue variation in DNAm. An example of a probe with a SNP at the target CpG demonstrated how sample genotype can confound the measurement of DNAm. Additionally, 8.6% of probes mapped to multiple locations in silico. Measurements from these non-specific probes likely represent a combination of DNAm from multiple genomic sites. The expanded biological annotation demonstrated that based on DNAm, grouping probes by an alternative high-density and intermediate-density CpG island classification provided a distinctive pattern of DNAm. Finally, variable enrichment for differentially methylated probes was noted across CpG classes and gene feature groups, dependant on the tissues that were compared. Conclusion DNAm arrays offer a high-throughput approach for which careful consideration of probe content should be utilized to better understand the biological processes affected. Probes containing SNPs and non-specific probes may affect the assessment of DNAm using the 450 k array. Additionally, probe classification by CpG enrichment classes and to a lesser extent gene feature groups resulted in distinct patterns of DNAm. Thus, we recommend that compromised probes be removed from analyses and that the genomic context of DNAm is considered in studies deciphering the biological meaning of Illumina 450 k array data.Medical Genetics, Department ofMedicine, Faculty ofMolecular Medicine and Therapeutics, Centre forObstetrics and Gynaecology, Department ofNon UBCReviewedFacult