Imputation of DNA Methylation Levels in the Brain Implicates a Risk Factor for Parkinson's Disease.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how genetic variation affects intermediate phenotypes, like DNA methylation or gene expression, and how these in turn vary with complex human disease provides valuable insight into disease etiology. However, intermediate phenotypes are typically tissue and developmental stage specific, making relevant phenotypes difficult to assay. Assembling large case-control cohorts, necessary to achieve sufficient statistical power to assess associations between complex traits and relevant intermediate phenotypes, has therefore remained challenging. Imputation of such intermediate phenotypes represents a practical alternative in this context. We used a mixed linear model to impute DNA methylation (DNAm) levels of four brain tissues at up to 1826 methylome-wide sites in 6259 patients with

SUBMITTER: Rawlik K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5068861 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature