@article {7349, title = {DNA methylation signatures of chronic low-grade inflammation are associated with complex diseases.}, journal = {Genome Biol}, volume = {17}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Dec 12}, pages = {255}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Chronic low-grade inflammation reflects a subclinical immune response implicated in the pathogenesis of complex diseases. Identifying genetic loci where DNA methylation is associated with chronic low-grade inflammation may reveal novel pathways or therapeutic targets for inflammation.

RESULTS: We performed a meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) of serum C-reactive protein (CRP), which is a sensitive marker of low-grade inflammation, in a large European population (n = 8863) and trans-ethnic replication in African Americans (n = 4111). We found differential methylation at 218 CpG sites to be associated with CRP (P < 1.15 {\texttimes} 10(-7)) in the discovery panel of European ancestry and replicated (P < 2.29 {\texttimes} 10(-4)) 58 CpG sites (45 unique loci) among African Americans. To further characterize the molecular and clinical relevance of the findings, we examined the association with gene expression, genetic sequence variants, and clinical outcomes. DNA methylation at nine (16\%) CpG sites was associated with whole blood gene expression in cis (P < 8.47 {\texttimes} 10(-5)), ten (17\%) CpG sites were associated with a nearby genetic variant (P < 2.50 {\texttimes} 10(-3)), and 51 (88\%) were also associated with at least one related cardiometabolic entity (P < 9.58 {\texttimes} 10(-5)). An additive weighted score of replicated CpG sites accounted for up to 6\% inter-individual variation (R2) of age-adjusted and sex-adjusted CRP, independent of known CRP-related genetic variants.

CONCLUSION: We have completed an EWAS of chronic low-grade inflammation and identified many novel genetic loci underlying inflammation that may serve as targets for the development of novel therapeutic interventions for inflammation.

}, issn = {1474-760X}, doi = {10.1186/s13059-016-1119-5}, author = {Ligthart, Symen and Marzi, Carola and Aslibekyan, Stella and Mendelson, Michael M and Conneely, Karen N and Tanaka, Toshiko and Colicino, Elena and Waite, Lindsay L and Joehanes, Roby and Guan, Weihua and Brody, Jennifer A and Elks, Cathy and Marioni, Riccardo and Jhun, Min A and Agha, Golareh and Bressler, Jan and Ward-Caviness, Cavin K and Chen, Brian H and Huan, Tianxiao and Bakulski, Kelly and Salfati, Elias L and Fiorito, Giovanni and Wahl, Simone and Schramm, Katharina and Sha, Jin and Hernandez, Dena G and Just, Allan C and Smith, Jennifer A and Sotoodehnia, Nona and Pilling, Luke C and Pankow, James S and Tsao, Phil S and Liu, Chunyu and Zhao, Wei and Guarrera, Simonetta and Michopoulos, Vasiliki J and Smith, Alicia K and Peters, Marjolein J and Melzer, David and Vokonas, Pantel and Fornage, Myriam and Prokisch, Holger and Bis, Joshua C and Chu, Audrey Y and Herder, Christian and Grallert, Harald and Yao, Chen and Shah, Sonia and McRae, Allan F and Lin, Honghuang and Horvath, Steve and Fallin, Daniele and Hofman, Albert and Wareham, Nicholas J and Wiggins, Kerri L and Feinberg, Andrew P and Starr, John M and Visscher, Peter M and Murabito, Joanne M and Kardia, Sharon L R and Absher, Devin M and Binder, Elisabeth B and Singleton, Andrew B and Bandinelli, Stefania and Peters, Annette and Waldenberger, Melanie and Matullo, Giuseppe and Schwartz, Joel D and Demerath, Ellen W and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and van Meurs, Joyce B J and Franco, Oscar H and Chen, Yii-Der Ida and Levy, Daniel and Turner, Stephen T and Deary, Ian J and Ressler, Kerry J and Dupuis, Jos{\'e}e and Ferrucci, Luigi and Ong, Ken K and Assimes, Themistocles L and Boerwinkle, Eric and Koenig, Wolfgang and Arnett, Donna K and Baccarelli, Andrea A and Benjamin, Emelia J and Dehghan, Abbas} } @article {6936, title = {A meta-analysis of 120 246 individuals identifies 18 new loci for fibrinogen concentration.}, journal = {Hum Mol Genet}, volume = {25}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Jan 15}, pages = {358-70}, abstract = {

Genome-wide association studies have previously identified 23 genetic loci associated with circulating fibrinogen concentration. These studies used HapMap imputation and did not examine the X-chromosome. 1000 Genomes imputation provides better coverage of uncommon variants, and includes indels. We conducted a genome-wide association analysis of 34 studies imputed to the 1000 Genomes Project reference panel and including \~{}120 000 participants of European ancestry (95 806 participants with data on the X-chromosome). Approximately 10.7 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms and 1.2 million indels were examined. We identified 41 genome-wide significant fibrinogen loci; of which, 18 were newly identified. There were no genome-wide significant signals on the X-chromosome. The lead variants of five significant loci were indels. We further identified six additional independent signals, including three rare variants, at two previously characterized loci: FGB and IRF1. Together the 41 loci explain 3\% of the variance in plasma fibrinogen concentration.

}, issn = {1460-2083}, doi = {10.1093/hmg/ddv454}, author = {de Vries, Paul S and Chasman, Daniel I and Sabater-Lleal, Maria and Chen, Ming-Huei and Huffman, Jennifer E and Steri, Maristella and Tang, Weihong and Teumer, Alexander and Marioni, Riccardo E and Grossmann, Vera and Hottenga, Jouke J and Trompet, Stella and M{\"u}ller-Nurasyid, Martina and Zhao, Jing Hua and Brody, Jennifer A and Kleber, Marcus E and Guo, Xiuqing and Wang, Jie Jin and Auer, Paul L and Attia, John R and Yanek, Lisa R and Ahluwalia, Tarunveer S and Lahti, Jari and Venturini, Cristina and Tanaka, Toshiko and Bielak, Lawrence F and Joshi, Peter K and Rocanin-Arjo, Ares and Kolcic, Ivana and Navarro, Pau and Rose, Lynda M and Oldmeadow, Christopher and Riess, Helene and Mazur, Johanna and Basu, Saonli and Goel, Anuj and Yang, Qiong and Ghanbari, Mohsen and Willemsen, Gonneke and Rumley, Ann and Fiorillo, Edoardo and de Craen, Anton J M and Grotevendt, Anne and Scott, Robert and Taylor, Kent D and Delgado, Graciela E and Yao, Jie and Kifley, Annette and Kooperberg, Charles and Qayyum, Rehan and Lopez, Lorna M and Berentzen, Tina L and R{\"a}ikk{\"o}nen, Katri and Mangino, Massimo and Bandinelli, Stefania and Peyser, Patricia A and Wild, Sarah and Tr{\'e}gou{\"e}t, David-Alexandre and Wright, Alan F and Marten, Jonathan and Zemunik, Tatijana and Morrison, Alanna C and Sennblad, Bengt and Tofler, Geoffrey and de Maat, Moniek P M and de Geus, Eco J C and Lowe, Gordon D and Zoledziewska, Magdalena and Sattar, Naveed and Binder, Harald and V{\"o}lker, Uwe and Waldenberger, Melanie and Khaw, Kay-Tee and McKnight, Barbara and Huang, Jie and Jenny, Nancy S and Holliday, Elizabeth G and Qi, Lihong and Mcevoy, Mark G and Becker, Diane M and Starr, John M and Sarin, Antti-Pekka and Hysi, Pirro G and Hernandez, Dena G and Jhun, Min A and Campbell, Harry and Hamsten, Anders and Rivadeneira, Fernando and McArdle, Wendy L and Slagboom, P Eline and Zeller, Tanja and Koenig, Wolfgang and Psaty, Bruce M and Haritunians, Talin and Liu, Jingmin and Palotie, Aarno and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Stott, David J and Hofman, Albert and Franco, Oscar H and Polasek, Ozren and Rudan, Igor and Morange, Pierre-Emmanuel and Wilson, James F and Kardia, Sharon L R and Ferrucci, Luigi and Spector, Tim D and Eriksson, Johan G and Hansen, Torben and Deary, Ian J and Becker, Lewis C and Scott, Rodney J and Mitchell, Paul and M{\"a}rz, Winfried and Wareham, Nick J and Peters, Annette and Greinacher, Andreas and Wild, Philipp S and Jukema, J Wouter and Boomsma, Dorret I and Hayward, Caroline and Cucca, Francesco and Tracy, Russell and Watkins, Hugh and Reiner, Alex P and Folsom, Aaron R and Ridker, Paul M and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Smith, Nicholas L and Strachan, David P and Dehghan, Abbas} } @article {7257, title = {Multiethnic Exome-Wide Association Study of Subclinical Atherosclerosis.}, journal = {Circ Cardiovasc Genet}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Nov 21}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: -The burden of subclinical atherosclerosis in asymptomatic individuals is heritable and associated with elevated risk of developing clinical coronary heart disease (CHD). We sought to identify genetic variants in protein-coding regions associated with subclinical atherosclerosis and the risk of subsequent CHD.

METHODS AND RESULTS: -We studied a total of 25,109 European ancestry and African-American participants with coronary artery calcification (CAC) measured by cardiac computed tomography and 52,869 with common carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) measured by ultrasonography within the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium. Participants were genotyped for 247,870 DNA sequence variants (231,539 in exons) across the genome. A meta-analysis of exome-wide association studies was performed across cohorts for CAC and CIMT. APOB p.Arg3527Gln was associated with four-fold excess CAC (P = 3{\texttimes}10(-10)). The APOE ε2 allele (p.Arg176Cys) was associated with both 22.3\% reduced CAC (P = 1{\texttimes}10(-12)) and 1.4\% reduced CIMT (P = 4{\texttimes}10(-14)) in carriers compared with non-carriers. In secondary analyses conditioning on LDL cholesterol concentration, the ε2 protective association with CAC, although attenuated, remained strongly significant. Additionally, the presence of ε2 was associated with reduced risk for CHD (OR 0.77; P = 1{\texttimes}10(-11)).

CONCLUSIONS: -Exome-wide association meta-analysis demonstrates that protein-coding variants in APOB and APOE associate with subclinical atherosclerosis. APOE ε2 represents the first significant association for multiple subclinical atherosclerosis traits across multiple ethnicities as well as clinical CHD.

}, issn = {1942-3268}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.116.001572}, author = {Natarajan, Pradeep and Bis, Joshua C and Bielak, Lawrence F and Cox, Amanda J and D{\"o}rr, Marcus and Feitosa, Mary F and Franceschini, Nora and Guo, Xiuqing and Hwang, Shih-Jen and Isaacs, Aaron and Jhun, Min A and Kavousi, Maryam and Li-Gao, Ruifang and Lyytik{\"a}inen, Leo-Pekka and Marioni, Riccardo E and Schminke, Ulf and Stitziel, Nathan O and Tada, Hayato and van Setten, Jessica and Smith, Albert V and Vojinovic, Dina and Yanek, Lisa R and Yao, Jie and Yerges-Armstrong, Laura M and Amin, Najaf and Baber, Usman and Borecki, Ingrid B and Carr, J Jeffrey and Chen, Yii-Der Ida and Cupples, L Adrienne and de Jong, Pim A and de Koning, Harry and de Vos, Bob D and Demirkan, Ayse and Fuster, Valentin and Franco, Oscar H and Goodarzi, Mark O and Harris, Tamara B and Heckbert, Susan R and Heiss, Gerardo and Hoffmann, Udo and Hofman, Albert and I{\v s}gum, Ivana and Jukema, J Wouter and K{\"a}h{\"o}nen, Mika and Kardia, Sharon L R and Kral, Brian G and Launer, Lenore J and Massaro, Joseph and Mehran, Roxana and Mitchell, Braxton D and Mosley, Thomas H and de Mutsert, Ren{\'e}e and Newman, Anne B and Nguyen, Khanh-Dung and North, Kari E and O{\textquoteright}Connell, Jeffrey R and Oudkerk, Matthijs and Pankow, James S and Peloso, Gina M and Post, Wendy and Province, Michael A and Raffield, Laura M and Raitakari, Olli T and Reilly, Dermot F and Rivadeneira, Fernando and Rosendaal, Frits and Sartori, Samantha and Taylor, Kent D and Teumer, Alexander and Trompet, Stella and Turner, Stephen T and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Vaidya, Dhananjay and van der Lugt, Aad and V{\"o}lker, Uwe and Wardlaw, Joanna M and Wassel, Christina L and Weiss, Stefan and Wojczynski, Mary K and Becker, Diane M and Becker, Lewis C and Boerwinkle, Eric and Bowden, Donald W and Deary, Ian J and Dehghan, Abbas and Felix, Stephan B and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Lehtim{\"a}ki, Terho and Mathias, Rasika and Mook-Kanamori, Dennis O and Psaty, Bruce M and Rader, Daniel J and Rotter, Jerome I and Wilson, James G and van Duijn, Cornelia M and V{\"o}lzke, Henry and Kathiresan, Sekar and Peyser, Patricia A and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J} } @article {7255, title = {SOS2 and ACP1 Loci Identified through Large-Scale Exome Chip Analysis Regulate Kidney Development and Function.}, journal = {J Am Soc Nephrol}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Dec 05}, abstract = {

Genome-wide association studies have identified >50 common variants associated with kidney function, but these variants do not fully explain the variation in eGFR. We performed a two-stage meta-analysis of associations between genotypes from the Illumina exome array and eGFR on the basis of serum creatinine (eGFRcrea) among participants of European ancestry from the CKDGen Consortium (nStage1: 111,666; nStage2: 48,343). In single-variant analyses, we identified single nucleotide polymorphisms at seven new loci associated with eGFRcrea (PPM1J, EDEM3, ACP1, SPEG, EYA4, CYP1A1, and ATXN2L; PStage1<3.7{\texttimes}10(-7)), of which most were common and annotated as nonsynonymous variants. Gene-based analysis identified associations of functional rare variants in three genes with eGFRcrea, including a novel association with the SOS Ras/Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factor 2 gene, SOS2 (P=5.4{\texttimes}10(-8) by sequence kernel association test). Experimental follow-up in zebrafish embryos revealed changes in glomerular gene expression and renal tubule morphology in the embryonic kidney of acp1- and sos2-knockdowns. These developmental abnormalities associated with altered blood clearance rate and heightened prevalence of edema. This study expands the number of loci associated with kidney function and identifies novel genes with potential roles in kidney formation.

}, issn = {1533-3450}, doi = {10.1681/ASN.2016020131}, author = {Li, Man and Li, Yong and Weeks, Olivia and Mijatovic, Vladan and Teumer, Alexander and Huffman, Jennifer E and Tromp, Gerard and Fuchsberger, Christian and Gorski, Mathias and Lyytik{\"a}inen, Leo-Pekka and Nutile, Teresa and Sedaghat, Sanaz and Sorice, Rossella and Tin, Adrienne and Yang, Qiong and Ahluwalia, Tarunveer S and Arking, Dan E and Bihlmeyer, Nathan A and B{\"o}ger, Carsten A and Carroll, Robert J and Chasman, Daniel I and Cornelis, Marilyn C and Dehghan, Abbas and Faul, Jessica D and Feitosa, Mary F and Gambaro, Giovanni and Gasparini, Paolo and Giulianini, Franco and Heid, Iris and Huang, Jinyan and Imboden, Medea and Jackson, Anne U and Jeff, Janina and Jhun, Min A and Katz, Ronit and Kifley, Annette and Kilpel{\"a}inen, Tuomas O and Kumar, Ashish and Laakso, Markku and Li-Gao, Ruifang and Lohman, Kurt and Lu, Yingchang and M{\"a}gi, Reedik and Malerba, Giovanni and Mihailov, Evelin and Mohlke, Karen L and Mook-Kanamori, Dennis O and Robino, Antonietta and Ruderfer, Douglas and Salvi, Erika and Schick, Ursula M and Schulz, Christina-Alexandra and Smith, Albert V and Smith, Jennifer A and Traglia, Michela and Yerges-Armstrong, Laura M and Zhao, Wei and Goodarzi, Mark O and Kraja, Aldi T and Liu, Chunyu and Wessel, Jennifer and Boerwinkle, Eric and Borecki, Ingrid B and Bork-Jensen, Jette and Bottinger, Erwin P and Braga, Daniele and Brandslund, Ivan and Brody, Jennifer A and Campbell, Archie and Carey, David J and Christensen, Cramer and Coresh, Josef and Crook, Errol and Curhan, Gary C and Cusi, Daniele and de Boer, Ian H and de Vries, Aiko P J and Denny, Joshua C and Devuyst, Olivier and Dreisbach, Albert W and Endlich, Karlhans and Esko, T{\~o}nu and Franco, Oscar H and Fulop, Tibor and Gerhard, Glenn S and Gl{\"u}mer, Charlotte and Gottesman, Omri and Grarup, Niels and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Harris, Tamara B and Hayward, Caroline and Hocking, Lynne and Hofman, Albert and Hu, Frank B and Husemoen, Lise Lotte N and Jackson, Rebecca D and J{\o}rgensen, Torben and J{\o}rgensen, Marit E and K{\"a}h{\"o}nen, Mika and Kardia, Sharon L R and K{\"o}nig, Wolfgang and Kooperberg, Charles and Kriebel, Jennifer and Launer, Lenore J and Lauritzen, Torsten and Lehtim{\"a}ki, Terho and Levy, Daniel and Linksted, Pamela and Linneberg, Allan and Liu, Yongmei and Loos, Ruth J F and Lupo, Antonio and Meisinger, Christine and Melander, Olle and Metspalu, Andres and Mitchell, Paul and Nauck, Matthias and N{\"u}rnberg, Peter and Orho-Melander, Marju and Parsa, Afshin and Pedersen, Oluf and Peters, Annette and Peters, Ulrike and Polasek, Ozren and Porteous, David and Probst-Hensch, Nicole M and Psaty, Bruce M and Qi, Lu and Raitakari, Olli T and Reiner, Alex P and Rettig, Rainer and Ridker, Paul M and Rivadeneira, Fernando and Rossouw, Jacques E and Schmidt, Frank and Siscovick, David and Soranzo, Nicole and Strauch, Konstantin and Toniolo, Daniela and Turner, Stephen T and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Ulivi, Sheila and Velayutham, Dinesh and V{\"o}lker, Uwe and V{\"o}lzke, Henry and Waldenberger, Melanie and Wang, Jie Jin and Weir, David R and Witte, Daniel and Kuivaniemi, Helena and Fox, Caroline S and Franceschini, Nora and Goessling, Wolfram and K{\"o}ttgen, Anna and Chu, Audrey Y} } @article {7141, title = {Trans-ethnic Meta-analysis and Functional Annotation Illuminates the~Genetic Architecture of Fasting Glucose and Insulin.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {99}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Jul 7}, pages = {56-75}, abstract = {

Knowledge of the genetic basis of the type 2 diabetes (T2D)-related quantitative traits fasting glucose (FG) and insulin (FI) in African ancestry (AA) individuals has been limited. In non-diabetic subjects of AA (n = 20,209) and European ancestry (EA; n = 57,292), we performed trans-ethnic (AA+EA) fine-mapping of 54 established EA FG or FI loci with detailed functional annotation, assessed their relevance in AA individuals, and sought previously undescribed loci through trans-ethnic (AA+EA) meta-analysis. We narrowed credible sets of variants driving association signals for 22/54 EA-associated loci; 18/22 credible sets overlapped with active islet-specific enhancers or transcription factor (TF) binding sites, and 21/22 contained at least one TF motif. Of the 54 EA-associated loci, 23 were shared between EA and AA. Replication with an additional 10,096 AA individuals identified two previously undescribed FI loci, chrX FAM133A (rs213676) and chr5 PELO (rs6450057). Trans-ethnic analyses with regulatory annotation illuminate the genetic architecture of glycemic traits and suggest gene regulation as a target to advance precision medicine for T2D. Our approach to utilize state-of-the-art functional annotation and implement trans-ethnic association analysis for discovery and fine-mapping offers a framework for further follow-up and characterization of GWAS signals of complex trait loci.

}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.05.006}, author = {Liu, Ching-Ti and Raghavan, Sridharan and Maruthur, Nisa and Kabagambe, Edmond Kato and Hong, Jaeyoung and Ng, Maggie C Y and Hivert, Marie-France and Lu, Yingchang and An, Ping and Bentley, Amy R and Drolet, Anne M and Gaulton, Kyle J and Guo, Xiuqing and Armstrong, Loren L and Irvin, Marguerite R and Li, Man and Lipovich, Leonard and Rybin, Denis V and Taylor, Kent D and Agyemang, Charles and Palmer, Nicholette D and Cade, Brian E and Chen, Wei-Min and Dauriz, Marco and Delaney, Joseph A C and Edwards, Todd L and Evans, Daniel S and Evans, Michele K and Lange, Leslie A and Leong, Aaron and Liu, Jingmin and Liu, Yongmei and Nayak, Uma and Patel, Sanjay R and Porneala, Bianca C and Rasmussen-Torvik, Laura J and Snijder, Marieke B and Stallings, Sarah C and Tanaka, Toshiko and Yanek, Lisa R and Zhao, Wei and Becker, Diane M and Bielak, Lawrence F and Biggs, Mary L and Bottinger, Erwin P and Bowden, Donald W and Chen, Guanjie and Correa, Adolfo and Couper, David J and Crawford, Dana C and Cushman, Mary and Eicher, John D and Fornage, Myriam and Franceschini, Nora and Fu, Yi-Ping and Goodarzi, Mark O and Gottesman, Omri and Hara, Kazuo and Harris, Tamara B and Jensen, Richard A and Johnson, Andrew D and Jhun, Min A and Karter, Andrew J and Keller, Margaux F and Kho, Abel N and Kizer, Jorge R and Krauss, Ronald M and Langefeld, Carl D and Li, Xiaohui and Liang, Jingling and Liu, Simin and Lowe, William L and Mosley, Thomas H and North, Kari E and Pacheco, Jennifer A and Peyser, Patricia A and Patrick, Alan L and Rice, Kenneth M and Selvin, Elizabeth and Sims, Mario and Smith, Jennifer A and Tajuddin, Salman M and Vaidya, Dhananjay and Wren, Mary P and Yao, Jie and Zhu, Xiaofeng and Ziegler, Julie T and Zmuda, Joseph M and Zonderman, Alan B and Zwinderman, Aeilko H and Adeyemo, Adebowale and Boerwinkle, Eric and Ferrucci, Luigi and Hayes, M Geoffrey and Kardia, Sharon L R and Miljkovic, Iva and Pankow, James S and Rotimi, Charles N and Sale, Mich{\`e}le M and Wagenknecht, Lynne E and Arnett, Donna K and Chen, Yii-Der Ida and Nalls, Michael A and Province, Michael A and Kao, W H Linda and Siscovick, David S and Psaty, Bruce M and Wilson, James G and Loos, Ruth J F and Dupuis, Jos{\'e}e and Rich, Stephen S and Florez, Jose C and Rotter, Jerome I and Morris, Andrew P and Meigs, James B} } @article {7583, title = {DNA Methylation Analysis Identifies Loci for Blood Pressure Regulation.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {101}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Dec 07}, pages = {888-902}, abstract = {

Genome-wide association studies have identified hundreds of genetic variants associated with blood pressure (BP), but sequence variation accounts for a small fraction of the phenotypic variance. Epigenetic changes may alter the expression of genes involved in BP regulation and explain part of the missing heritability. We therefore conducted a two-stage meta-analysis of the cross-sectional associations of systolic and diastolic BP with blood-derived genome-wide DNA methylation measured on the Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip in 17,010 individuals of European, African American, and Hispanic ancestry. Of 31 discovery-stage cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) dinucleotides, 13 replicated after Bonferroni correction (discovery: N = 9,828, p < 1.0~{\texttimes} 10-7; replication: N = 7,182, p~<~1.6~{\texttimes} 10-3). The replicated methylation sites are heritable (h2 > 30\%) and independent of known BP genetic variants, explaining an additional 1.4\% and 2.0\% of the interindividual variation in systolic and diastolic BP, respectively. Bidirectional Mendelian randomization among up to 4,513 individuals of European ancestry from 4 cohorts suggested that methylation at cg08035323 (TAF1B-YWHAQ) influences BP, while BP influences methylation at cg00533891 (ZMIZ1), cg00574958 (CPT1A), and cg02711608 (SLC1A5). Gene expression analyses further identified six genes (TSPAN2, SLC7A11, UNC93B1, CPT1A, PTMS, and LPCAT3) with evidence of triangular associations between methylation, gene expression, and BP. Additional integrative Mendelian randomization analyses of gene expression and DNA methylation suggested that the expression of TSPAN2 is a putative mediator of association between DNA methylation at cg23999170 and BP. These findings suggest that heritable DNA methylation plays a role in regulating BP independently of previously known genetic variants.

}, keywords = {Aged, Blood Pressure, CpG Islands, Cross-Sectional Studies, DNA Methylation, Epigenesis, Genetic, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Mendelian Randomization Analysis, Middle Aged, Nerve Tissue Proteins, Quantitative Trait Loci, Tetraspanins}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.09.028}, author = {Richard, Melissa A and Huan, Tianxiao and Ligthart, Symen and Gondalia, Rahul and Jhun, Min A and Brody, Jennifer A and Irvin, Marguerite R and Marioni, Riccardo and Shen, Jincheng and Tsai, Pei-Chien and Montasser, May E and Jia, Yucheng and Syme, Catriona and Salfati, Elias L and Boerwinkle, Eric and Guan, Weihua and Mosley, Thomas H and Bressler, Jan and Morrison, Alanna C and Liu, Chunyu and Mendelson, Michael M and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and van Meurs, Joyce B and Franco, Oscar H and Zhang, Guosheng and Li, Yun and Stewart, James D and Bis, Joshua C and Psaty, Bruce M and Chen, Yii-Der Ida and Kardia, Sharon L R and Zhao, Wei and Turner, Stephen T and Absher, Devin and Aslibekyan, Stella and Starr, John M and McRae, Allan F and Hou, Lifang and Just, Allan C and Schwartz, Joel D and Vokonas, Pantel S and Menni, Cristina and Spector, Tim D and Shuldiner, Alan and Damcott, Coleen M and Rotter, Jerome I and Palmas, Walter and Liu, Yongmei and Paus, Tom{\'a}{\v s} and Horvath, Steve and O{\textquoteright}Connell, Jeffrey R and Guo, Xiuqing and Pausova, Zdenka and Assimes, Themistocles L and Sotoodehnia, Nona and Smith, Jennifer A and Arnett, Donna K and Deary, Ian J and Baccarelli, Andrea A and Bell, Jordana T and Whitsel, Eric and Dehghan, Abbas and Levy, Daniel and Fornage, Myriam} } @article {7816, title = {DNA methylation age is associated with an altered hemostatic profile in a multi-ethnic meta-analysis.}, journal = {Blood}, year = {2018}, month = {2018 Jul 24}, abstract = {

Many hemostatic factors are associated with age and age-related diseases, however much remains unknown about the biological mechanisms linking aging and hemostatic factors. DNA methylation is a novel means by which to assess epigenetic aging, which is a measure of age and the aging processes as determined by altered epigenetic states. We used a meta-analysis approach to examine the association between measures of epigenetic aging and hemostatic factors, as well as a clotting time measure. For fibrinogen, we used European and African-ancestry participants who were meta-analyzed separately and combined via a random effects meta-analysis. All other measures only included participants of European-ancestry. We found that 1-year higher extrinsic epigenetic age as compared to chronological age was associated with higher fibrinogen (0.004 g/L per year; 95\% CI: 0.001, 0.007; P = 0.01) and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1; 0.13 U/mL per year; 95\% CI: 0.07, 0.20; P = 6.6x10-5) concentrations as well as lower activated partial thromboplastin time, a measure of clotting time. We replicated PAI-1 associations using an independent cohort. To further elucidate potential functional mechanisms we associated epigenetic aging with expression levels of the PAI-1 protein encoding gene (SERPINE1) and the three fibrinogen subunit-encoding genes (FGA, FGG, and FGB), in both peripheral blood and aorta intima-media samples. We observed associations between accelerated epigenetic aging and transcription of FGG in both tissues. Collectively, our results indicate that accelerated epigenetic aging is associated with a pro-coagulation hemostatic profile, and that epigenetic aging may regulate hemostasis in part via gene transcription.

}, issn = {1528-0020}, doi = {10.1182/blood-2018-02-831347}, author = {Ward-Caviness, Cavin K and Huffman, Jennifer E and Evertt, Karl and Germain, Marine and van Dongen, Jenny and Hill, W David and Jhun, Min A and Brody, Jennifer A and Ghanbari, Mohsen and Du, Lei and Roetker, Nicholas S and de Vries, Paul S and Waldenberger, Melanie and Gieger, Christian and Wolf, Petra and Prokisch, Holger and Koenig, Wolfgang and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Levy, Daniel and Liu, Chunyu and Truong, Vinh and Wells, Philip S and Tr{\'e}gou{\"e}t, David-Alexandre and Tang, Weihong and Morrison, Alanna C and Boerwinkle, Eric and Wiggins, Kerri L and McKnight, Barbara and Guo, Xiuqing and Psaty, Bruce M and Sotoodenia, Nona and Boomsa, Dorret I and Willemsen, Gonneke and Ligthart, Lannie and Deary, Ian J and Zhao, Wei and Ware, Erin B and Kardia, Sharon L R and van Meurs, Joyce B J and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Franco, Oscar H and Eriksson, Per and Franco-Cereceda, Anders and Pankow, James S and Johnson, Andrew D and Gagnon, France and Morange, Pierre-Emmanuel and de Geus, Eco J C and Starr, John M and Smith, Jennifer A and Dehghan, Abbas and Bj{\"o}rck, Hanna M and Smith, Nicholas L and Peters, Annette} } @article {9184, title = {Epigenetic and integrative cross-omics analyses of cerebral white matter hyperintensities on MRI.}, journal = {Brain}, year = {2022}, month = {2022 Aug 09}, abstract = {

Cerebral white matter hyperintensities on MRI are markers of cerebral small vessel disease, a major risk factor for dementia and stroke. Despite the successful identification of multiple genetic variants associated with this highly heritable condition, its genetic architecture remains incompletely understood. More specifically, the role of DNA methylation has received little attention. We investigated the association between white matter hyperintensity burden and DNA methylation in blood at approximately 450,000 CpG sites in 9,732 middle-aged to older adults from 14 community-based studies. Single-CpG and region-based association analyses were carried out. Functional annotation and integrative cross-omics analyses were performed to identify novel genes underlying the relationship between DNA methylation and white matter hyperintensities. We identified 12 single-CpG and 46 region-based DNA methylation associations with white matter hyperintensity burden. Our top discovery single CpG, cg24202936 (P = 7.6 {\texttimes} 10-8), was associated with F2 expression in blood (P = 6.4 {\texttimes} 10-5), and colocalized with FOLH1 expression in brain (posterior probability =0.75). Our top differentially methylated regions were in PRMT1 and in CCDC144NL-AS1, which were also represented in single-CpG associations (cg17417856 and cg06809326, respectively). Through Mendelian randomization analyses cg06809326 was putatively associated with white matter hyperintensity burden (P = 0.03) and expression of CCDC144NL-AS1 possibly mediated this association. Differentially methylated region analysis, joint epigenetic association analysis, and multi-omics colocalization analysis consistently identified a role of DNA methylation near SH3PXD2A, a locus previously identified in genome-wide association studies of white matter hyperintensities. Gene set enrichment analyses revealed functions of the identified DNA methylation loci in the blood-brain barrier and in the immune response. Integrative cross-omics analysis identified 19 key regulatory genes in two networks related to extracellular matrix organization, and lipid and lipoprotein metabolism. A drug repositioning analysis indicated antihyperlipidemic agents, more specifically peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha, as possible target drugs for white matter hyperintensities. Our epigenome-wide association study and integrative cross-omics analyses implicate novel genes influencing white matter hyperintensity burden, which converged on pathways related to the immune response and to a compromised blood brain barrier possibly due to disrupted cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix interactions. The results also suggest that antihyperlipidemic therapy may contribute to lowering risk for white matter hyperintensities possibly through protection against blood brain barrier disruption.

}, issn = {1460-2156}, doi = {10.1093/brain/awac290}, author = {Yang, Yunju and Knol, Maria J and Wang, Ruiqi and Mishra, Aniket and Liu, Dan and Luciano, Michelle and Teumer, Alexander and Armstrong, Nicola and Bis, Joshua C and Jhun, Min A and Li, Shuo and Adams, Hieab H H and Aziz, Nasir Ahmad and Bastin, Mark E and Bourgey, Mathieu and Brody, Jennifer A and Frenzel, Stefan and Gottesman, Rebecca F and Hosten, Norbert and Hou, Lifang and Kardia, Sharon L R and Lohner, Valerie and Marquis, Pascale and Maniega, Susana Mu{\~n}oz and Satizabal, Claudia L and Sorond, Farzaneh A and Vald{\'e}s Hern{\'a}ndez, Maria C and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Vernooij, Meike W and Wittfeld, Katharina and Yang, Qiong and Zhao, Wei and Boerwinkle, Eric and Levy, Daniel and Deary, Ian J and Jiang, Jiyang and Mather, Karen A and Mosley, Thomas H and Psaty, Bruce M and Sachdev, Perminder S and Smith, Jennifer A and Sotoodehnia, Nona and DeCarli, Charles S and Breteler, Monique M B and Arfan Ikram, M and Grabe, Hans J and Wardlaw, Joanna and Longstreth, W T and Launer, Lenore J and Seshadri, Sudha and Debette, Stephanie and Fornage, Myriam} }