Project description:DNA methylation has become increasingly recognized in the etiology of psychiatric disorders. Because brain tissue is not accessible in living humans, epigenetic studies are most often conducted in blood. Saliva is often collected for genotyping studies but is rarely used to examine DNA methylation because the proportion of epithelial cells and leukocytes varies extensively between individuals. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether saliva DNA is informative for studies of psychiatric disorders. Saliva and blood methylation was clearly distinguishable though there was positive correlation overall. There was little correlation in CpG sites within relevant candidate genes. Correlated CpG sites were more likely to occur in areas of low CpG density (i.e. CpG shores and open seas). There was more variability in CpG sites from saliva than blood, which may reflect its heterogeneity. Thus, this study provides a framework for using DNA methylation from saliva and suggests that DNA methylation of saliva may offer distinct opportunities for epidemiological and longitudinal studies of psychiatric traits. DNA methylation was assessed in saliva and blood samples from 64 adult African Americans. Both saliva and blood samples were collected from each participant. Saliva was stored in Oragene DNA sample collection kits (DNA Genotek), and blood was collected in EDTA vacuum tubes. DNA was extracted using the Puregene Genomic DNA kit (Invitrogen). DNA methylation was interrogated for each sample using the HumanMethylation450 BeadChip (Illumina). Analyses for tissue-specific DNA patterns were conducted using linear regression adjusted for appropriate covariates, including estimated cellular proportions. The estimated proportion of epithelial cells in saliva DNA ranged from 3-99% (median 26%). In blood, the estimated proportion of lymphocytes ranged from 25-70% (median 48%) and neutrophils ranged from 42-84% (median 58%). Methylation of 68.8% of all CpG sites differed relative to epithelial cell proportion (FDR<.05). Our results provide a framework for methylation studies in DNA extracted from saliva and highlight the importance of controlling for the proportion of epithelial and leukocyte cells. This presents an attractive opportunity for investigators that have already collected salivary DNA for genetic studies of psychiatric traits.

Project description:Background: Low birth weight is associated with an increased adult metabolic disease risk. It is widely discussed that poor intrauterine conditions could induce long-lasting epigenetic modifications, leading to systemic changes in regulation of metabolic genes. In a unique cohort of 17 monozygotic (MZ) monochorionic female twins very discordant for birth weight (relative differences ranging from 21.3-35.7%), we examined if adverse prenatal growth conditions experienced by the smaller co-twins lead to systemic long-lasting DNA methylation changes. Genome-wide DNA methylation profiles were acquired from saliva DNA using the Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip, targeting ~2% of all CpGs in the genome. Results: Overall, co-twins showed very similar genome-wide DNA methylation profiles. Since observed differences were almost exclusively caused by variable cellular composition, an original marker-based adjustment strategy was developed to eliminate such variation at affected CpGs. Among adjusted and unchanged CpGs 3153 were differentially methylated between the heavy and light co-twins at nominal significance (p<0.01), of which 45 showed absolute mean β-value differences >0.05 (max=0.08). Deep bisulfite sequencing of eight such loci revealed that differences remained in the range of technical variation, arguing against a reproducible biological effect. Analysis of methylation in repetitive elements using methylation-dependent primer extension assays also indicated no significant intra-pair differences. Conclusions: Severe intrauterine growth differences observed within these MZ twins are not associated with long-lasting DNA methylation differences in cells composing saliva, detectable with up-to-date technologies. Additionally, our results indicate that uneven cell type composition can lead to spurious results and should be addressed in epigenomic studies. DNA methylation profiles of saliva from 17 Adult Female MZ MC Twins discordant for birth weight.

Project description:It has been suggested that the etiology of respiratory allergies (RA) can be partly explained by DNA methylation changes caused by adverse environmental and lifestyle factors experienced early in life. Longitudinal, prospective studies can aid in the unravelment of the epigenetic mechanisms involved in the disease development. High compliance rates can be expected in these studies when data is collected using non-invasive and convenient procedures. Saliva is an attractive biofluid to analyze changes in DNA methylation patterns. We investigated in a pilot study the differential methylation in saliva of RA (n=5) compared to healthy controls (n=5) using the Illumina Methylation 450K BeadChip platform. We evaluated the results against the results obtained in mononuclear blood cells from the same individuals. Differences in methylation patterns from saliva and mononuclear blood cells were clearly distinguishable (PAdj<0.001 and |ÎÎ²|>0.2), though the methylation status of about 96% of the cg-sites was comparable between peripheral blood mononuclear cells and saliva. When comparing RA cases with healthy controls, the number of differentially methylated sites (DMS) in saliva and blood were 485 and 437, respectively, of which 216 were in common. The methylation levels of these sites were significantly correlated between blood and saliva. Pyrosequencing analysis of 3 selected DMS in the PM20D1, STK32C, and FGFR2 genes, confirmed the absolute levels of methylation as well as the differences between cases and controls as observed from the array data. Our findings show that saliva can be used for genome-wide methylation analysis and that it is possible to identify DMS to distinguish RA cases from healthy controls. The results were replicated in blood cells of the same individuals and confirmed by selected pyrosequencing analysis. This study provides a proof-of-concept that the analysis of DNA methylation profiles in saliva may offer distinct opportunities for molecular epidemiology studies of RA. Bisulphite converted DNA from the 10 samples were hybridised to the Illumina Infinium 450k Human Methylation Beadchip

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Grady Kids Saliva Methylation

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