Integrated genetic and epigenetic analysis identifies haplotype-specific methylation in the FTO type 2 diabetes and obesity susceptibility locus.
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Recent multi-dimensional approaches to the study of complex disease have revealed powerful insights into how genetic and epigenetic factors may underlie their aetiopathogenesis. We examined genotype-epigenotype interactions in the context of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), focussing on known regions of genomic susceptibility. We assayed DNA methylation in 60 females, stratified according to disease susceptibility haplotype using previously identified association loci. CpG methylation was assessed using methylated DNA immunoprecipitation on a targeted array (MeDIP-chip) and absolute methylation values were estimated using a Bayesian algorithm (BATMAN). Absolute methylation levels were quantified across LD blocks, and we identified increased DNA methylation on the FTO obesity susceptibility haplotype, tagged by the rs8050136 risk allele A (p = 9.40×10-4, permutation p = 1.0×10-3). Further analysis across the 46 kb LD block using sliding windows localised the most significant difference to be within a 7.7 kb region (p = 1.13×10-7). Sequence level analysis, followed by pyrosequencing validation, revealed that the methylation difference was driven by the co-ordinated phase of CpG-creating SNPs across the risk haplotype. This 7.7 kb region of haplotype-specific methylation (HSM), encapsulates a Highly Conserved Non-Coding Element (HCNE) that has previously been validated as a long-range enhancer, supported by the histone H3K4me1 enhancer signature. This study demonstrates that integration of Genome-Wide Association (GWA) SNP and epigenomic DNA methylation data can identify potential novel genotype-epigenotype interactions within diseaseassociated loci, thus providing a novel route to aid unravelling common complex diseases. © 2010 Bell et al.
Date Issued
2010-12-03
Start Page
e14040
Journal / Book Title
PLoS One
Volume
5
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
© 2010 Bell et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Identifier
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21124985
Subjects
Adult
Algorithms
Animals
Base Sequence
Bayes Theorem
CpG Islands
DNA Methylation
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2
Epigenomics
Evolution, Molecular
Female
Gene Expression Profiling
Gene Frequency
Genetic Predisposition to Disease
Genotype
Haplotypes
Histones
Humans
Methylation
Obesity
Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
Sequence Analysis, DNA
International Type 2 Diabetes 1q Consortium
General Science & Technology
MD Multidisciplinary
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States