Epigenome-wide analysis of DNA methylation and coronary heart disease: a nested case-control study
- Peking University, China
- Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, China
- West China Hospital, Sichuan University, China
- Oxford University, United Kingdom
- Suzhou CDC, China
- Wuzhong CDC, China
- China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, China
- Tulane University, United States
- Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, United States
Abstract
Background: Identifying environmentally responsive genetic loci where DNA methylation is associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) may reveal novel pathways or therapeutic targets for CHD. We conducted the first prospective epigenome-wide analysis of DNA methylation in relation to incident CHD in the Asian population.
Methods: We did a nested case-control study comprising incident CHD cases and 1:1 matched controls who were identified from the 10-year follow-up of the China Kadoorie Biobank. Methylation level of baseline blood leukocyte DNA was measured by Infinium Methylation EPIC BeadChip. We performed the single cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) site association analysis and network approach to identify CHD-associated CpG sites and co-methylation gene module.
Results: After quality control, 982 participants (mean age 50.1 years) were retained. Methylation level at 25 CpG sites across the genome was associated with incident CHD (genome-wide false discovery rate [FDR] < 0.05 or module-specific FDR <0.01). One SD increase in methylation level of identified CpGs was associated with differences in CHD risk, ranging from a 47% decrease to a 118% increase. Mediation analyses revealed 28.5% of the excessed CHD risk associated with smoking was mediated by methylation level at the promoter region of ANKS1A gene (P for mediation effect = 0.036). Methylation level at the promoter region of SNX30 was associated with blood pressure and subsequent risk of CHD, with the mediating proportion to be 7.7% (P = 0.003) via systolic blood pressure and 6.4% (P = 0.006) via diastolic blood pressure. Network analysis revealed a co-methylation module associated with CHD.
Conclusions: We identified novel blood methylation alterations associated with incident CHD in the Asian population and provided evidence of the possible role of epigenetic regulations in the smoking- and BP-related pathways to CHD risk.
Funding: This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (81390544 and 91846303). The CKB baseline survey and the first re-survey were supported by a grant from the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation in Hong Kong. The long-term follow-up is supported by grants from the UK Wellcome Trust (202922/Z/16/Z, 088158/Z/09/Z, 104085/Z/14/Z), grant (2016YFC0900500, 2016YFC0900501, 2016YFC0900504, 2016YFC1303904) from the National Key and Program of China, and Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (2011BAI09B01).
Data availability
According to the Regulation of the People's Republic of China on the Administration of Human Genetic Resources, we are not allowed to provide Chinese human clinical and genetic data abroad without an official approval.According to our previous experience, the Administration of Human Genetic Resources of China suggests obtaining official approval after the acceptance of paper. We can make the raw data of part data (significant CpGs that were found in our study) not all data available. The process of obtaining official approval usually takes 2-3 months.For researchers who are interested to access the original data, the access policy and procedures are available at www.ckbiobank.org. In brief, the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) is being conducted jointly by the Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU), Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) in Beijing. Requesters should be employees of a recognised academic institution, health service organisation or charitable research organisation with experience in medical research. Requestors should be able to demonstrate, through their peer reviewed publications in the area of interest, their ability to carry out the proposed study. After registration, details of the required information are provided on the CKB Data Access System. The CKB Access Team will review and respond to data requests within 6-8 weeks.We are providing our syntax of statistical analysis and the source data for Table 3 and Table 4. We can also upload summary statistics for all 747,726 CpG sites as source data for Table 2 if needed. Figure 2 is the direct output from R software. We can provide the output file if needed.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Natural Science Foundation of China (81390544)
- Jun Lv
National Natural Science Foundation of China (91846303)
- Jun Lv
Wellcome Trust (202922/Z/16/Z)
- Zhengming Chen
National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC0900500)
- Yu Guo
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Review Committee of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Beijing, China), the Oxford Tropical Research Ethics Committee, University of Oxford (UK), and Peking University Institutional Review Board (Beijing, China). All participants provided written informed consent.
Copyright
© 2021, Si et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 1,797
- views
-
- 272
- downloads
-
- 17
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Epigenome-wide analysis of DNA methylation and coronary heart disease: a nested case-control study
eLife 10:e68671.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68671
Further reading
-
- Epidemiology and Global Health
Given the rapid cross-country spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting difficulty in tracking lineage spread, we investigated the potential of combining mobile service data and fine-granular metadata (such as postal codes and genomic data) to advance integrated genomic surveillance of the pandemic in the federal state of Thuringia, Germany. We sequenced over 6500 SARS-CoV-2 Alpha genomes (B.1.1.7) across 7 months within Thuringia while collecting patients’ isolation dates and postal codes. Our dataset is complemented by over 66,000 publicly available German Alpha genomes and mobile service data for Thuringia. We identified the existence and spread of nine persistent mutation variants within the Alpha lineage, seven of which formed separate phylogenetic clusters with different spreading patterns in Thuringia. The remaining two are subclusters. Mobile service data can indicate these clusters’ spread and highlight a potential sampling bias, especially of low-prevalence variants. Thereby, mobile service data can be used either retrospectively to assess surveillance coverage and efficiency from already collected data or to actively guide part of a surveillance sampling process to districts where these variants are expected to emerge. The latter concept was successfully implemented as a proof-of-concept for a mobility-guided sampling strategy in response to the surveillance of Omicron sublineage BQ.1.1. The combination of mobile service data and SARS-CoV-2 surveillance by genome sequencing is a valuable tool for more targeted and responsive surveillance.
-
- Epidemiology and Global Health
Background: The role of circulating metabolites on child development is understudied. We investigated associations between children's serum metabolome and early childhood development (ECD).
Methods: Untargeted metabolomics was performed on serum samples of 5,004 children aged 6-59 months, a subset of participants from the Brazilian National Survey on Child Nutrition (ENANI-2019). ECD was assessed using the Survey of Well-being of Young Children's milestones questionnaire. The graded response model was used to estimate developmental age. Developmental quotient (DQ) was calculated as the developmental age divided by chronological age. Partial least square regression selected metabolites with a variable importance projection ≥ 1. The interaction between significant metabolites and the child's age was tested.
Results: Twenty-eight top-ranked metabolites were included in linear regression models adjusted for the child's nutritional status, diet quality, and infant age. Cresol sulfate (β = -0.07; adjusted-p < 0.001), hippuric acid (β = -0.06; adjusted-p < 0.001), phenylacetylglutamine (β = -0.06; adjusted-p < 0.001), and trimethylamine-N-oxide (β = -0.05; adjusted-p = 0.002) showed inverse associations with DQ. We observed opposite directions in the association of DQ for creatinine (for children aged -1 SD: β = -0.05; p =0.01; +1 SD: β = 0.05; p =0.02) and methylhistidine (-1 SD: β = - 0.04; p =0.04; +1 SD: β = 0.04; p =0.03).
Conclusion: Serum biomarkers, including dietary and microbial-derived metabolites involved in the gut-brain axis, may potentially be used to track children at risk for developmental delays.
Funding: Supported by the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the Brazilian National Research Council.
