Project description:Background: Personalized medicine is predicated on the notion that individual biochemical and genomic profiles are relatively constant in times of good health and to some extent predictive of disease or therapeutic response. We report a pilot study quantifying gene expression and methylation profile consistency over time, addressing the reasons for individual uniqueness, and its relation to N=1 phenotypes. Methods: Whole blood samples from 4 African American women, 4 Caucasian women, and 4 Caucasian men drawn from the Atlanta Center for Health Discovery and Well Being study at three successive 6-month intervals were profiled by RNASeq, miRNASeq, and Illumina Methyl-450 arrays. Standard regression approaches were used to evaluate the proportion of variance for each type of omic measure that is among individuals, and to quantify correlations among measures and with clinical attributes related to wellness. Results: Longitudinal omic profiles are in general highly consistent over time, with an average of 67% of the variance in transcript abundance, 42% of CpG methylation level (but 88% for the most differentiated CpG per gene), and 50% of miRNA abundance among individuals, which are all comparable to 74% of the variance among individuals for 74 clinical traits. One third of the variance can be attributed to differential blood cell type abundance, which is also fairly stable over time, and a lesser amount to eQTL effects, whereas seven conserved axes of covariance that capture diverse aspects of immune function explain over half of the variance. These axes also explain a considerable proportion of individually extreme transcript abundance, namely approximately 100 genes that are significantly up- or down-regulated in each person and are in some cases enriched for relevant gene activities that plausibly associate with clinical attributes. A similar fraction of genes have individually divergent methylation levels, but these do not overlap with the transcripts, and fewer than 20% of genes have significantly correlated methylation and gene expression. Conclusions: People express an “omic personality” consisting of peripheral blood transcriptional and epigenetic profiles that are constant over the course of a year and reflect various types of immune activity. Baseline genomic profiles can provide a window into the molecular basis of traits that might be useful for explaining medical conditions or guiding personalized health decisions. Whole blood samples from 12 subjects drawn from the Atlanta Center for Health Discovery and Well Being study at three successive 6-month intervals were profiled by RNASeq, miRNASeq, and Illumina Methyl-450 arrays.

Project description:The prevalence of immune-mediated diseases such as allergies and autoimmune diseases is on the rise in the developed world. Microbial exposure is known to modulate the risk for these diseases. In order to explore differences in the gene expression patterns induced in utero in infants born in contrasting standards of living and hygiene, we collected umbilical cord blood RNA samples from full-term newborn infants born with normal vaginal delivery in Finland (modern society), Estonia (rapidly developing society) and the Republic of Karelia, Russia (poor economical conditions). Transcriptomic profiles were analyzed using whole genome microarrays including gender, gestational age, birth month and HLA allele genotype as confounding variables in the analysis. The data revealed that the whole blood transcriptome of Finnish and Estonian neonates differ from their Karelian counterparts. Samples from Karelian infants had an increase in transcripts associated with LPS induction and bacterial sepsis observed in 1-year-old infants in earlier studies. The results suggest exposure to toll like receptor (TLR) ligands and a more matured immune response in infants born in Petrozavodsk compared to the Finnish and Estonian infants. These results further support the concept of a conspicuous plasticity in the developing immune system: the environmental factors that play a role in the susceptibility/protection towards immune-mediated diseases begin to shape the neonatal immunity already in utero and direct the maturation of both the adaptive and the innate immune responses in accordance with the surrounding microbial milieu. These 15 rehybridized samples were only utilized in the batch correction and excluded from any further analysis steps. Umbilical cord blood was drawn into Tempus Blood RNA tubes (Applied Biosystems) from children born at the maternity unit of Jorvi hospital (Espoo, Finland; n=4), maternity units of Tartu and PM-CM-5lva (Estonia; n=4), or two maternity departments in Petrozavodsk (capital of the Republic of Karelia, Russian Federation; n=7) according to the manufacturerM-BM-4s protocol and then stored in -70 M-BM-0C until analyzed.

Project description:The prevalence of immune-mediated diseases such as allergies and autoimmune diseases is on the rise in the developed world. Microbial exposure is known to modulate the risk for these diseases. In order to explore differences in the gene expression patterns induced in utero in infants born in contrasting standards of living and hygiene, we collected umbilical cord blood RNA samples from full-term newborn infants born with normal vaginal delivery in Finland (modern society), Estonia (rapidly developing society) and the Republic of Karelia, Russia (poor economical conditions). Transcriptomic profiles were analyzed using whole genome microarrays including gender, gestational age, birth month and HLA allele genotype as confounding variables in the analysis. The data revealed that the whole blood transcriptome of Finnish and Estonian neonates differ from their Karelian counterparts. Samples from Karelian infants had an increase in transcripts associated with LPS induction and bacterial sepsis observed in 1-year-old infants in earlier studies. The results suggest exposure to toll like receptor (TLR) ligands and a more matured immune response in infants born in Petrozavodsk compared to the Finnish and Estonian infants. These results further support the concept of a conspicuous plasticity in the developing immune system: the environmental factors that play a role in the susceptibility/protection towards immune-mediated diseases begin to shape the neonatal immunity already in utero and direct the maturation of both the adaptive and the innate immune responses in accordance with the surrounding microbial milieu. Umbilical cord blood was drawn into Tempus Blood RNA tubes (Applied Biosystems) from children born between January and May 2010 at the maternity unit of Jorvi hospital (Espoo, Finland; n=48), maternity units of Tartu and PM-CM-5lva (Estonia; n=25), or two maternity departments in Petrozavodsk (capital of the Republic of Karelia, Russian Federation; n=40) according to the manufacturerM-BM-4s protocol and then stored in M-bM-^HM-^R70 M-BM-0C until analyzed. All newborn infants were full-term (>36 gestational weeks) and born vaginally. 113 cord blood RNA samples were analyzed with Affymetrix U219 gene array. Gender, pregnancy week, month of birth and HLA risk class were included as confounding factors in the analysis model.

Project description:Background: Personalized medicine is predicated on the notion that individual biochemical and genomic profiles are relatively constant in times of good health and to some extent predictive of disease or therapeutic response. We report a pilot study quantifying gene expression and methylation profile consistency over time, addressing the reasons for individual uniqueness, and its relation to N=1 phenotypes. Methods: Whole blood samples from 4 African American women, 4 Caucasian women, and 4 Caucasian men drawn from the Atlanta Center for Health Discovery and Well Being study at three successive 6-month intervals were profiled by RNASeq, miRNASeq, and Illumina Methyl-450 arrays. Standard regression approaches were used to evaluate the proportion of variance for each type of omic measure that is among individuals, and to quantify correlations among measures and with clinical attributes related to wellness. Results: Longitudinal omic profiles are in general highly consistent over time, with an average of 67% of the variance in transcript abundance, 42% of CpG methylation level (but 88% for the most differentiated CpG per gene), and 50% of miRNA abundance among individuals, which are all comparable to 74% of the variance among individuals for 74 clinical traits. One third of the variance can be attributed to differential blood cell type abundance, which is also fairly stable over time, and a lesser amount to eQTL effects, whereas seven conserved axes of covariance that capture diverse aspects of immune function explain over half of the variance. These axes also explain a considerable proportion of individually extreme transcript abundance, namely approximately 100 genes that are significantly up- or down-regulated in each person and are in some cases enriched for relevant gene activities that plausibly associate with clinical attributes. A similar fraction of genes have individually divergent methylation levels, but these do not overlap with the transcripts, and fewer than 20% of genes have significantly correlated methylation and gene expression. Conclusions: People express an “omic personality” consisting of peripheral blood transcriptional and epigenetic profiles that are constant over the course of a year and reflect various types of immune activity. Baseline genomic profiles can provide a window into the molecular basis of traits that might be useful for explaining medical conditions or guiding personalized health decisions. Whole blood samples from 12 subjects drawn from the Atlanta Center for Health Discovery and Well Being study at three successive 6-month intervals were profiled by RNASeq, miRNASeq, and Illumina Methyl-450 arrays.

Dataset Information

Gene Expression profiling in healthy population samples

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure