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Age-associated DNA methylation changes within 5 years after birth in human blood leukocytes

ABSTRACT: Age-related changes in DNA methylation occurring in blood leukocytes during early childhood may reflect epigenetic maturation. We hypothesized that some of these changes involve gene networks of critical relevance in leukocyte biology and conducted a prospective study to elucidate the dynamics of DNA methylation. Serial blood samples were collected at 3, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60 months after birth in 10 healthy girls born in Finland and participating in the Type 1 Diabetes Prediction and Prevention Study. DNA methylation was measured using the HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. After filtering for the presence of polymorphisms and cell-lineage-specific signatures, 794 CpGs showed significant DNA methylation differences as a function of age in all children (41.5% age-methylated and 58.4% age-demethylated, bonferroni corrected p-value <0.001). Age-methylated CpGs were more frequently located in gene bodies and within +5 to +50 kilobases (kb) of transcription start sites (TSS), and enriched in developmental, neuronal and plasma membrane genes. Age-demethylated CpGs were associated to promoters and DNAse-I hypersensitivity sites, located within -5 to +5 kb of the nearest TSS, and enriched in genes related to immunity, antigen presentation, the polycomb-group protein complex and cytoplasm. This study reveals that susceptibility loci for complex inflammatory diseases (e.g. IRF5, NOD2, PTGER4) and genes encoding histone modifiers and chromatin remodeling factors (e.g. HDAC4, KDM2A, KDM2B, JARID2, ARID3A, SMARCD3) undergo DNA methylation changes in leukocytes during early childhood. These results open new perspectives to understand leukocyte maturation and provide a catalog of CpGs that may need to be corrected for age effects when performing DNA methylation studies in children.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE62219 | GEO | 2015/04/01

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA263492

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Age-related changes in DNA methylation occurring in blood leukocytes during early childhood may reflect epigenetic maturation. We hypothesized that some of these changes involve gene networks of critical relevance in leukocyte biology and conducted a prospective study to elucidate the dynamics of DNA methylation. Serial blood samples were collected at 3, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60 months after birth in 10 healthy girls born in Finland and participating in the Type 1 Diabetes Prediction and Prevention Study. DNA methylation was measured using the HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. After filtering for the presence of polymorphisms and cell-lineage-specific signatures, 794 CpGs showed significant DNA methylation differences as a function of age in all children (41.5% age-methylated and 58.4% age-demethylated, bonferroni corrected p-value <0.001). Age-methylated CpGs were more frequently located in gene bodies and within +5 to +50 kilobases (kb) of transcription start sites (TSS), and enriched in developmental, neuronal and plasma membrane genes. Age-demethylated CpGs were associated to promoters and DNAse-I hypersensitivity sites, located within -5 to +5 kb of the nearest TSS, and enriched in genes related to immunity, antigen presentation, the polycomb-group protein complex and cytoplasm. This study reveals that susceptibility loci for complex inflammatory diseases (e.g. IRF5, NOD2, PTGER4) and genes encoding histone modifiers and chromatin remodeling factors (e.g. HDAC4, KDM2A, KDM2B, JARID2, ARID3A, SMARCD3) undergo DNA methylation changes in leukocytes during early childhood. These results open new perspectives to understand leukocyte maturation and provide a catalog of CpGs that may need to be corrected for age effects when performing DNA methylation studies in children. We analysed the longitudinal changes in DNA methylation in a total of 60 samples at 3, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, and 60 months after birth, using serial DNA samples extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes of 10 healthy girls of the Diabetes Prediction and Prevention Study (DIPP).

Project description:DNA methylation (DNAm) plays diverse roles in human biology, but this dynamic epigenetic mark remains far from fully characterized. Although earlier studies uncovered loci that undergo age-associated DNAm changes in adults, little is known about such changes during childhood. Despite profound DNAm plasticity during embryogenesis and early development, monozygotic twins show indistinguishable childhood methylation, suggesting DNAm is highly coordinated during the pediatric period. Here we examine the methylation of 27,578 CpG dinucleotides in peripheral blood DNA from 398 boys, aged 3 to 17 years, and find significant age-associated changes in DNAm at 2,078 loci. We report a deficit of such loci on the X chromosome, a preference for specific nucleotides immediately surrounding the interrogated CpG dinucleotide, and a primary association with developmental and immune ontological functions. These pediatric age-associated loci overlap significantly with those previously identified in adults (p < 0.001) but most of the pediatric loci are unique, suggesting many are childhood-specific. Meta-analysis (n = 1080) with two adult studies reveals that the methylation changes in 29.5% of the age-associated pediatric loci follow a linear pattern from childhood into adulthood; however, we also find a three-fold higher rate of change in children compared with adults and that a higher proportion of lifelong changes are more accurately modeled as a function of logarithmic age. We therefore conclude that DNAm changes occur more rapidly during childhood and are imperfectly accounted for by statistical corrections that are linear in age, further suggesting that future DNAm studies are matched closely for age. Age associated DNA methylation was evaluated at each CpG locus using a fixed-effects linear regression model adjusting for BeadChip as a covariate to account for batch effects. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted for each CpG locus to assess the age affect at each CpG locus which was subsequently corrected for multiple hypotheses using a Benjamini-Hochberg FDR. SUPPLEMENTARY FILES: * Matrix_AllSampleDetection.txt: Detection P-values for each sample and each loci * Matrix_AllSampleSignal.txt: Signal for Probe A and Probe B for each sample and each loci * Matrix_Non-Normalized_AllSampleBeta.txt: Beta values calculated using GenomeStudio v2010.3 Methylation Module 1.8.5 as Signal of Probe B / (Signal of Probe A + Signal of Probe B + 100) * Matrix_Normalized_AllSampleBetaPrime.txt: Beta Prime values used for analysis calculated from the Probe B and Probe A signals as Beta Prime = Signal of Probe B / (Signal of Probe A + Signal of Probe A)

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Age-associated DNA methylation changes within 5 years after birth in human blood leukocytes

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