ORCID Profile
0000-0002-8773-7149
Current Organisation
University of Helsinki
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Publisher: Wiley
Date: 30-12-2020
DOI: 10.1111/ACER.14528
Abstract: DNA methylation may play a role in the progression from normative to problematic drinking and underlie adverse health outcomes associated with alcohol misuse. We examined the association between alcohol consumption and DNA methylation patterns using 3 approaches: a conventional epigenome‐wide association study (EWAS) a co‐twin comparison design, which controls for genetic and environmental influences that twins share and a regression of age acceleration, defined as a discrepancy between chronological age and DNA methylation age, on alcohol consumption. Participants came from the Finnish Twin Cohorts (FinnTwin12/FinnTwin16 N = 1,004 55% female average age = 23 years). In iduals reported the number of alcoholic beverages consumed in the past week, and epigenome‐wide DNA methylation was assessed in whole blood using the Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. In the EWAS, alcohol consumption was significantly related to methylation at 24 CpG sites. When evaluating whether differences between twin siblings (185 monozygotic pairs) in alcohol consumption predicted differences in DNA methylation, co‐twin comparisons replicated 4 CpG sites from the EWAS and identified 23 additional sites. However, when we examined qualitative differences in drinking patterns between twins (heavy drinker vs. light drinker/abstainer or moderate drinker vs. abstainer 44 pairs), methylation patterns did not significantly differ within twin pairs. Finally, in iduals who reported higher alcohol consumption also exhibited greater age acceleration, though results were no longer significant after controlling for genetic and environmental influences shared by co‐twins. Our analyses offer insight into the associations between epigenetic variation and levels of alcohol consumption in young adulthood.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-2021
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-10-2018
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-12-2022
DOI: 10.1186/S13059-022-02837-1
Abstract: Genetic variants within nearly 1000 loci are known to contribute to modulation of blood lipid levels. However, the biological pathways underlying these associations are frequently unknown, limiting understanding of these findings and hindering downstream translational efforts such as drug target discovery. To expand our understanding of the underlying biological pathways and mechanisms controlling blood lipid levels, we leverage a large multi-ancestry meta-analysis ( N = 1,654,960) of blood lipids to prioritize putative causal genes for 2286 lipid associations using six gene prediction approaches. Using phenome-wide association (PheWAS) scans, we identify relationships of genetically predicted lipid levels to other diseases and conditions. We confirm known pleiotropic associations with cardiovascular phenotypes and determine novel associations, notably with cholelithiasis risk. We perform sex-stratified GWAS meta-analysis of lipid levels and show that 3–5% of autosomal lipid-associated loci demonstrate sex-biased effects. Finally, we report 21 novel lipid loci identified on the X chromosome. Many of the sex-biased autosomal and X chromosome lipid loci show pleiotropic associations with sex hormones, emphasizing the role of hormone regulation in lipid metabolism. Taken together, our findings provide insights into the biological mechanisms through which associated variants lead to altered lipid levels and potentially cardiovascular disease risk.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2022
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-12-2021
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 21-06-2018
DOI: 10.1101/353581
Abstract: Tobacco smoking is a risk factor for multiple diseases, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Many smoking-associated signals have been detected in the blood methylome, but the extent to which these changes are widespread to metabolically relevant tissues, and impact gene expression or cardio-metabolic health, remains unclear. We investigated smoking-associated DNA methylation and gene expression variation in adipose tissue from 542 healthy female twins with available well-characterized cardio-metabolic phenotype profiles. We identified 42 smoking-methylation and 42 smoking-expression signals, where five genes ( AHRR , CYP1A1 , CYP1B1 , CYTL1 , F2RL3 ) were both hypo-methylated and up-regulated in smokers. We replicated and validated a proportion of the signals in blood, adipose, skin, and lung tissue datasets, identifying tissue-shared effects. Smoking leaves systemic imprints on DNA methylation after smoking cessation, with stronger but shorter-lived effects on gene expression. We tested for associations between the observed smoking signals and several adiposity phenotypes that constitute cardio-metabolic disease risk. Visceral fat and android/gynoid ratio were associated with methylation at smoking-markers with functional impacts on expression, such as CYP1A1 , and in signals shared across tissues, such as NOTCH1 . At smoking-signals BHLHE40 and AHRR DNA methylation and gene expression levels in current smokers were predictive of future gain in visceral fat upon smoking cessation. Our results provide the first comprehensive characterization of coordinated DNA methylation and gene expression markers of smoking in adipose tissue, a subset of which link to human cardio-metabolic health and may give insights into the wide ranging risk effects of smoking across the body. Tobacco smoking is the strongest environmental risk factor for human disease. Here, we investigate how smoking systemically changes methylome and transcriptome signatures in multiple tissues in the human body. We observe strong and coordinated epigenetic and gene expression changes in adipose tissue, some of which are mirrored in blood, skin, and lung tissue. Smoking leaves a strong short-lived impact on gene expression levels, while methylation changes are long-lasting after smoking cessation. We investigated if these changes observed in a metabolically-relevant (adipose) tissue had impacts on human disease, and observed strong associations with cardio-metabolic disease traits. Some of the smoking signals could predict future gain in obesity and cardio-metabolic disease risk in current smokers who subsequently go on to quit smoking. Our results provide novel insights into understanding the widespread health consequence of smoking outside the lung.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-10-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41586-022-05275-Y
Abstract: Common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are predicted to collectively explain 40–50% of phenotypic variation in human height, but identifying the specific variants and associated regions requires huge s le sizes 1 . Here, using data from a genome-wide association study of 5.4 million in iduals of erse ancestries, we show that 12,111 independent SNPs that are significantly associated with height account for nearly all of the common SNP-based heritability. These SNPs are clustered within 7,209 non-overlapping genomic segments with a mean size of around 90 kb, covering about 21% of the genome. The density of independent associations varies across the genome and the regions of increased density are enriched for biologically relevant genes. In out-of-s le estimation and prediction, the 12,111 SNPs (or all SNPs in the HapMap 3 panel 2 ) account for 40% (45%) of phenotypic variance in populations of European ancestry but only around 10–20% (14–24%) in populations of other ancestries. Effect sizes, associated regions and gene prioritization are similar across ancestries, indicating that reduced prediction accuracy is likely to be explained by linkage disequilibrium and differences in allele frequency within associated regions. Finally, we show that the relevant biological pathways are detectable with smaller s le sizes than are needed to implicate causal genes and variants. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive map of specific genomic regions that contain the vast majority of common height-associated variants. Although this map is saturated for populations of European ancestry, further research is needed to achieve equivalent saturation in other ancestries.
No related grants have been discovered for sailalitha bollepalli.