Not All Saliva Samples Are Equal: The Role of Cellular Heterogeneity in DNA methylation and Epigenetic Age Analyses with Biological and Psychosocial Factors.

ABSTRACT: Saliva is widely used in biomedical population research, including epigenetic analyses to investigate gene-environment interplay and identify biomarkers. Its minimally invasive collection procedure makes it ideal for studies in pediatric populations. Saliva is a heterogenous tissue composed of immune and buccal epithelial cells (BEC). Amongst the many epigenetic marks, DNA methylation (DNAm) is the most studied in human populations. Given DNAm's integral role to cellular differentiation and maintenance, DNAm profiles are often highly cell type (CT)-specific and CT composition can drive salivary DNAm associations with environments or health as well as epigenetic age acceleration (EAA), discrepancy between chronological age and biological age derived from DNAm. To address this, reference-bas

SUBMITTER: Chan MH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11601407 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature