Project description:A cohort of adolescents and young adults took part in this longitudinal 5-year follow-up study. We selected four groups of subjects from the same community sample carefully paired by age and gender: (1) Typically Developing Adolescent (n=14); (2) Incident Anxiety Disorder (n=11); (3) Persistent Anxiety Disorder (n=14); (4) Remittent Anxiety Disorder (n=8).
Project description:DNA methylation has become increasingly recognized in the etiology of psychiatric disorders. Because brain tissue is not accessible in living humans, epigenetic studies are most often conducted in blood. Saliva is often collected for genotyping studies but is rarely used to examine DNA methylation because the proportion of epithelial cells and leukocytes varies extensively between individuals. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether saliva DNA is informative for studies of psychiatric disorders. Saliva and blood methylation was clearly distinguishable though there was positive correlation overall. There was little correlation in CpG sites within relevant candidate genes. Correlated CpG sites were more likely to occur in areas of low CpG density (i.e. CpG shores and open seas). There was more variability in CpG sites from saliva than blood, which may reflect its heterogeneity. Thus, this study provides a framework for using DNA methylation from saliva and suggests that DNA methylation of saliva may offer distinct opportunities for epidemiological and longitudinal studies of psychiatric traits. DNA methylation was assessed in saliva and blood samples from 64 adult African Americans. Both saliva and blood samples were collected from each participant. Saliva was stored in Oragene DNA sample collection kits (DNA Genotek), and blood was collected in EDTA vacuum tubes. DNA was extracted using the Puregene Genomic DNA kit (Invitrogen). DNA methylation was interrogated for each sample using the HumanMethylation450 BeadChip (Illumina). Analyses for tissue-specific DNA patterns were conducted using linear regression adjusted for appropriate covariates, including estimated cellular proportions. The estimated proportion of epithelial cells in saliva DNA ranged from 3-99% (median 26%). In blood, the estimated proportion of lymphocytes ranged from 25-70% (median 48%) and neutrophils ranged from 42-84% (median 58%). Methylation of 68.8% of all CpG sites differed relative to epithelial cell proportion (FDR<.05). Our results provide a framework for methylation studies in DNA extracted from saliva and highlight the importance of controlling for the proportion of epithelial and leukocyte cells. This presents an attractive opportunity for investigators that have already collected salivary DNA for genetic studies of psychiatric traits.
Project description:DNA methylation has become increasingly recognized in the etiology of psychiatric disorders. Because brain tissue is not accessible in living humans, epigenetic studies are most often conducted in blood. Saliva is often collected for genotyping studies but is rarely used to examine DNA methylation because the proportion of epithelial cells and leukocytes varies extensively between individuals. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether saliva DNA is informative for studies of psychiatric disorders. Saliva and blood methylation was clearly distinguishable though there was positive correlation overall. There was little correlation in CpG sites within relevant candidate genes. Correlated CpG sites were more likely to occur in areas of low CpG density (i.e. CpG shores and open seas). There was more variability in CpG sites from saliva than blood, which may reflect its heterogeneity. Thus, this study provides a framework for using DNA methylation from saliva and suggests that DNA methylation of saliva may offer distinct opportunities for epidemiological and longitudinal studies of psychiatric traits.
Project description:It has been suggested that the etiology of respiratory allergies (RA) can be partly explained by DNA methylation changes caused by adverse environmental and lifestyle factors experienced early in life. Longitudinal, prospective studies can aid in the unravelment of the epigenetic mechanisms involved in the disease development. High compliance rates can be expected in these studies when data is collected using non-invasive and convenient procedures. Saliva is an attractive biofluid to analyze changes in DNA methylation patterns. We investigated in a pilot study the differential methylation in saliva of RA (n=5) compared to healthy controls (n=5) using the Illumina Methylation 450K BeadChip platform. We evaluated the results against the results obtained in mononuclear blood cells from the same individuals. Differences in methylation patterns from saliva and mononuclear blood cells were clearly distinguishable (PAdj<0.001 and |Δβ|>0.2), though the methylation status of about 96% of the cg-sites was comparable between peripheral blood mononuclear cells and saliva. When comparing RA cases with healthy controls, the number of differentially methylated sites (DMS) in saliva and blood were 485 and 437, respectively, of which 216 were in common. The methylation levels of these sites were significantly correlated between blood and saliva. Pyrosequencing analysis of 3 selected DMS in the PM20D1, STK32C, and FGFR2 genes, confirmed the absolute levels of methylation as well as the differences between cases and controls as observed from the array data. Our findings show that saliva can be used for genome-wide methylation analysis and that it is possible to identify DMS to distinguish RA cases from healthy controls. The results were replicated in blood cells of the same individuals and confirmed by selected pyrosequencing analysis. This study provides a proof-of-concept that the analysis of DNA methylation profiles in saliva may offer distinct opportunities for molecular epidemiology studies of RA.
Project description:DNA methylation profiles from saliva collected from 89 mothers and 179 adolescent children who received or did not receive perinatal folic acid supplementation Periconceptional folic acid supplementation and DNA methylation patterns in adolescents
Project description:It has been suggested that the etiology of respiratory allergies (RA) can be partly explained by DNA methylation changes caused by adverse environmental and lifestyle factors experienced early in life. Longitudinal, prospective studies can aid in the unravelment of the epigenetic mechanisms involved in the disease development. High compliance rates can be expected in these studies when data is collected using non-invasive and convenient procedures. Saliva is an attractive biofluid to analyze changes in DNA methylation patterns. We investigated in a pilot study the differential methylation in saliva of RA (n=5) compared to healthy controls (n=5) using the Illumina Methylation 450K BeadChip platform. We evaluated the results against the results obtained in mononuclear blood cells from the same individuals. Differences in methylation patterns from saliva and mononuclear blood cells were clearly distinguishable (PAdj<0.001 and |Îβ|>0.2), though the methylation status of about 96% of the cg-sites was comparable between peripheral blood mononuclear cells and saliva. When comparing RA cases with healthy controls, the number of differentially methylated sites (DMS) in saliva and blood were 485 and 437, respectively, of which 216 were in common. The methylation levels of these sites were significantly correlated between blood and saliva. Pyrosequencing analysis of 3 selected DMS in the PM20D1, STK32C, and FGFR2 genes, confirmed the absolute levels of methylation as well as the differences between cases and controls as observed from the array data. Our findings show that saliva can be used for genome-wide methylation analysis and that it is possible to identify DMS to distinguish RA cases from healthy controls. The results were replicated in blood cells of the same individuals and confirmed by selected pyrosequencing analysis. This study provides a proof-of-concept that the analysis of DNA methylation profiles in saliva may offer distinct opportunities for molecular epidemiology studies of RA. Bisulphite converted DNA from the 10 samples were hybridised to the Illumina Infinium 450k Human Methylation Beadchip
Project description:Anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders within the EU and cause considerable disability due to high prevalence (14%), early onset and chronic nature. The currently used, poorly targeted drugs are ineffective because of addiction, tolerance, and poor efficacy. Consequently, better anxiolytics are needed, and their development requires understanding of the molecular mechanisms of anxiety, which currently remain largely unknown. Our goal was to identify the major biological pathways and biomarkers for anxiety disorders using a well-established mouse model and a human patient sample. Our mouse model, the social defeat, allows investigation of gene-environment interactions, known to be important in anxiety disorders. Using the most current proteomics methods we analyzed protein expression related to increased anxiety in brain and blood cells in the mouse. This multidisciplinary project was designed to increase the understanding of the neurobiological basis of anxiety, and provided targets for the development of improved anxiolytics and biomarkers for anxiety disorders.
Project description:Fifteen-year-old adolescents (N = 109) in a longitudinal study of child development were recruited to examine differences in DNA methylation in relation to parent reports of adversity during the adolescents’ infancy and preschool periods. Microarray technology applied to 28,000 cytosine–guanine dinucleotide sites within DNA derived from buccal epithelial cells showed differential methylation among adolescents whose parents reported high levels of stress during their children’s early lives. Maternal stressors in infancy and paternal stressors in the preschool years were most strongly predictive of differential methylation, and the patterning of such epigenetic marks varied by children’s gender. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first report of prospective associations between adversities in early childhood and the epigenetic conformation of adolescents’ genomic DNA. Genomic DNA was extracted from 109 Buccal DNA samples, bisulphite converted and hybridized, along with 4 technical replicates to the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation27 Beadchip v1.2 for genome wide DNA methylation profiling. Processed signal intensity data and Detection Pvalues for individual replicates of Samples 006 (reps a,b), 099 (reps a,b,c), 106 (reps a,b) reported in the supplementary file "processed_individual reps.txt."
Project description:Folate, a water-soluble vitamin, is a key source of one-carbon groups for DNA methylation, but studies of the DNA methylation response to supplemental folic acid yield inconsistent results. The aim of this study was to determine if DNA methylation patterns in the dominant white blood cell type, neutrophils, would respond differently than whole blood in response to chronic folic acid supplementation. Saliva and blood methylation was clearly distinguishable though there was positive correlation overall. There was little correlation in CpG sites within relevant candidate genes. Correlated CpG sites were more likely to occur in areas of low CpG density (i.e. CpG shores and open seas). There was more variability in CpG sites from saliva than blood, which may reflect its heterogeneity. Thus, this study provides a framework for using DNA methylation from saliva and suggests that DNA methylation of saliva may offer distinct opportunities for epidemiological and longitudinal studies of psychiatric traits. DNA methylation was assessed in whole blood and CD16+ neutrophils from obese and normal weight adult women undergoing 8 weeks of folate supplementation. Blood was collected in EDTA vacuum tubes, and CD16+ nutrophils were isolated by positive selection with Dynabeads. DNA was extracted using the DNeasy Kit (Qiagen). DNA methylation was interrogated for each sample using the HumanMethylation450 BeadChip (Illumina).
Project description:Mutations in the PTH1R gene were reported but these mutations are limited to a small subgroup of patients. The etiology of Ollier disease is unknown. We therefore undertook genome-wide copy number and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) analysis using Affymetrix SNP 6.0 arrays on 37 tumors of 28 Ollier patients in combination with expression array using Illumina Beadarray v3.0 for 7 tumors of 6 patients. We used Affymetrix SNP 6.0 to find out LOH and copy number alterations in Ollier tumors. To understand the genetic mechanism behind the development of enchondroma, we mainly focus on enchondromas and found alterations were validated. We used 14 enchondromas and 23 chondrosarcomas of 28 Ollier patients. We also used 30 controls (blood, saliva or frozen tissue). As controls, normal DNA derived from fresh frozen muscle tissue (n=3), peripheral blood lymphocytes (n=4) or saliva (n=4) was available for 11 Ollier patients and 3 patients with unrelated bone diseases. We used blood lymphocyte DNA from 12 healthy controls and 1 HapMap sample. We also isolated DNA from saliva for 3 of these controls to validate the use of saliva DNA in this study.