Project description:(1) In clinical practice and biomedical research populations are often divided categorically into distinct racial and ethnic groups. In reality, these categories comprise diverse groups with highly heterogeneous histories, cultures, traditions, religions, as well as social and environmental exposures. While the factors captured by these categories contribute to clinical practice and biomedical research, the use of race/ethnicity is widely debated. As a response to this debate, genetic ancestry has been suggested as a complement or alternative to this categorization. However, few studies have examined the effect of genetic ancestry, racial/ethnic identity, and environmental exposures on biological processes. Herein, we examine the contribution of self-identification within ethnicity, genetic ancestry, and environmental exposures on epigenetic modification of DNA methylation, a phenomenon affected by both genetic and environmental factors. We typed over 450,000 variably methylated CpG sites in primary whole blood of 573 individuals of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent who also had high-density genotype data. We found that methylation levels at a large number of CpG sites were significantly associated with ethnicity even when adjusting for genetic ancestry. In addition, we found an enrichment of ethnicity-associated sites amongst loci previously associated with environmental and social exposures. Interestingly, one of the strongest associated sites is driven by the Duffy Null blood type variant, demonstrating a new function of the locus in lymphocytes. Overall, the methylation changes associated with race/ethnicity, driven by both genes and environment, highlight the importance of measuring and accounting for both self-identified race/ethnicity and genetic ancestry in clinical and biomedical studies and the benefits of studying diverse populations. (2) In epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS), different methylation profiles of distinct cell-types may lead to false discoveries. We introduce ReFACTor, a method based on principal component analysis (PCA) for the correction of cell-type heterogeneity in EWAS. ReFACTor does not require knowledge of the cell counts, and it obtains improved estimates of the cell-type composition, resulting in improved power and control for false positives in EWAS.

Project description:(1) In clinical practice and biomedical research populations are often divided categorically into distinct racial and ethnic groups. In reality, these categories comprise diverse groups with highly heterogeneous histories, cultures, traditions, religions, as well as social and environmental exposures. While the factors captured by these categories contribute to clinical practice and biomedical research, the use of race/ethnicity is widely debated. As a response to this debate, genetic ancestry has been suggested as a complement or alternative to this categorization. However, few studies have examined the effect of genetic ancestry, racial/ethnic identity, and environmental exposures on biological processes. Herein, we examine the contribution of self-identification within ethnicity, genetic ancestry, and environmental exposures on epigenetic modification of DNA methylation, a phenomenon affected by both genetic and environmental factors. We typed over 450,000 variably methylated CpG sites in primary whole blood of 573 individuals of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent who also had high-density genotype data. We found that methylation levels at a large number of CpG sites were significantly associated with ethnicity even when adjusting for genetic ancestry. In addition, we found an enrichment of ethnicity-associated sites amongst loci previously associated with environmental and social exposures. Interestingly, one of the strongest associated sites is driven by the Duffy Null blood type variant, demonstrating a new function of the locus in lymphocytes. Overall, the methylation changes associated with race/ethnicity, driven by both genes and environment, highlight the importance of measuring and accounting for both self-identified race/ethnicity and genetic ancestry in clinical and biomedical studies and the benefits of studying diverse populations. (2) In epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS), different methylation profiles of distinct cell-types may lead to false discoveries. We introduce ReFACTor, a method based on principal component analysis (PCA) for the correction of cell-type heterogeneity in EWAS. ReFACTor does not require knowledge of the cell counts, and it obtains improved estimates of the cell-type composition, resulting in improved power and control for false positives in EWAS. Bisulphite converted DNA from 573 samples were hybridised to the Illumina Infinium 450k Human Methylation Beadchip and a complete blood count with automated white blood cell differential was performed by automated flow cytometry for 95 of the samples.

Project description:Background: Differences in breast cancer outcomes according to race/ethnicity have been reported. Hispanic/Latino (H/L) populations are a genetically admixed and heterogeneous group, with variable fractions of European, Indigenous American and African ancestries. Some studies suggest that breast cancer-specific mortality is higher in U.S. Hispanic/Latinas compared to non-Hispanic Whites (NHW) even after adjustment for socioeconomic status and education. The molecular profile of breast cancer has been widely described in NHWs but equivalent knowledge is lacking in Hispanic/Latinas. We have previously reported that the most prevalent breast cancer intrinsic subtype in Colombian H/L women was Luminal B as defined by surrogate St. Gallen 2013 criteria. In this study we explored ancestry-associated differences in molecular profiles of Luminal B tumors among these highly admixed women. Methods: We performed whole-transcriptome RNA-seq analysis in 42 Luminal tumors (21 Luminal A and 21 Luminal B) from Colombian women. Genetic ancestry was estimated from a panel of 80 ancestry-informative markers (AIM). We categorized patients according to Luminal subtype and to the proportion of European and Indigenous American ancestry and performed differential expression analysis comparing Luminal B against Luminal A tumors according to the assigned ancestry groups. Results: We found 5 genes potentially modulated by genetic ancestry: ERBB2 (Fold Change = 2.367, padj < 0.01), GRB7 (Fold Change = 2.327, padj < 0.01), GSDMB (Fold Change = 1.723, padj < 0.01, MIEN1 (Fold Change = 2.195, padj < 0.01 and ONECUT2 (Fold Change = 2.204, padj < 0.01). In the replication set we found a statistical significant association between European ancestry fraction and the expression levels of ERBB2 (p = 0.02, B = 2.49) and ONECUT2 (p = 0.04, B = -4.87). We also observed statistical significant associations for ERBB2 expression with Indigenous American ancestry (p < 0.001, B = 3.82). This association was not biased by the distribution of HER2+ tumors among the groups analyzed. Conclusions: Our results suggest that genetic ancestry in Hispanic/Latina women might modify ERBB2 gene expression in Luminal tumors. Further analyses are needed to confirm these findings and explore their prognostic value.

			Action	DRS
	GapExchange_phs000662.v1.p1.xml	Xml
	dbGaPEx2.1.5.xsd	Other
	phs000662.v1-Documents.zip	Other
	Study_Report.phs000662.NCS_AIM.v1.p1.MULTI.pdf	Pdf
	manifest_phs000662.NCS_AIM.v1.p1.c1.HBM.pdf	Pdf

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National Children's Study Vanguard Study Formative Research Study (NCS)

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