A survey of inter-individual variation in DNA methylation identifies environmentally responsive co-regulated networks of epigenetic variation in the human genome.

ABSTRACT: While population studies have resulted in detailed maps of genetic variation in humans, to date there are few robust maps of epigenetic variation. We identified sites containing clusters of CpGs with high inter-individual epigenetic variation, termed Variably Methylated Regions (VMRs) in five purified cell types. We observed that VMRs occur preferentially at enhancers and 3' UTRs. While the majority of VMRs have high heritability, a subset of VMRs within the genome show highly correlated variation in trans, forming co-regulated networks that have low heritability, differ between cell types and are enriched for specific transcription factor binding sites and biological pathways of functional relevance to each tissue. For example, in T cells we defined a network of 95 co-regulated VMRs enric

SUBMITTER: Garg P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6181428 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature