Demethylation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor as a biomarker for nascent smokers.

ABSTRACT: Epigenetic modifications to peripheral white blood cell DNA occur in response to a wide variety of exposures. In prior work, we and others have shown that broad changes in DNA methylation, particularly at the aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor (AHRR) locus, occur in samples from subjects with long histories of smoking. However, given the large number of epigenetic changes that occur in response to prolonged smoking, the primacy of the response at AHRR and the sensitivity of these changes to low levels of smoking are not known. Therefore, we examined the association of smoking to genome lymphocyte DNA methylation status in a representative sample of 399 African American youths living in the rural South that includes 72 subjects with less than one half-pack year of exposure. Consistent with

SUBMITTER: Philibert RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3499333 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature