| 1. |
- Hallengren, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Genetic determinants of growth hormone and GH-related phenotypes
- 2017
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Ingår i: BMC Genomics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2164. ; 18, s. 1-9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Higher fasting Growth Hormone (GH) has been associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Our objective was to find genetic determinants of fasting GH in order to facilitate future efforts of analyzing the association between fasting growth hormone and cardiovascular disease. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed in a discovery cohort of 4134 persons (58% females; age 46-68 yrs), linking SNPs to fasting hs-GH. Fifteen SNPs were replicated in an independent cohort of 5262 persons (28.9% females; age 56-85 yrs). The best performing SNP was analyzed vs GH-related variables in a third independent cohort (n = 24,047; 61% females; age 44-73 yrs). A candidate gene approach searched for significant SNPs in the genes GH1 and GHR in the discovery cohort and was replicated as previously described.RESULTS: In the GWAS, the minor allele of rs7208736 was associated with lower GH in the discovery cohort (p = 5.15*10^-6) and the replication cohort (p = 0.005). The GH reducing allele was associated with lower BMI (P = 0.026) and waist (P = 0.021) in males only. In the candidate gene approach rs13153388 in the GHR-gene was associated with elevated GH-levels (P = 0.003) in the discovery cohort only and reduced height (P = 0.003).CONCLUSION: In the first GWAS ever for GH, we identify a novel locus on chromosome 17 associated with fasting GH levels, suggesting novel biological mechanisms behind GH secretion and GH-related traits. The candidate gene approach identified a genetic variant in the GHR, which was associated with an elevation of fasting hs-GH and lower height suggesting reduced GHR ligand sensitivity. Our findings need further replication.
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| 2. |
- Nawaz, Imran, et al.
(författare)
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Integrin α9 gene promoter is hypermethylated and downregulated in nasopharyngeal carcinoma
- 2015
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Ingår i: Oncotarget. - Albany, NY, United States : Impact Journals LLC. - 1949-2553. ; 6:31, s. 31493-31507
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Epigenetic silencing of tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) by promoter methylation can be an early event in the multi-step process of carcinogenesis. Human chromosome 3 contains clusters of TSGs involved in many cancer types including nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), the most common cancer in Southern China. Among ten candidate TSGs identified in chromosome 3 using NotI microarray, ITGA9 and WNT7A could be validated. 5-aza-2 deoxycytidine treatment restored the expression of ITGA9 and WNT7A in two NPC cell lines. Immunostaining showed strong expression of these genes in the membrane and cytoplasm of adjacent control nasopharyngeal epithelium cells, while they were weakly expressed in NPC tumor cells. The ITGA9 promoter showed marked differentially methylation between tumor and control tissue, whereas no differentially methylation could be detected for the WNT7A promoter. The expression level of ITGA9 in NPC tumors was downregulated 4.9-fold, compared to the expression in control. ITGA9 methylation was detected by methylation specific PCR (MSP) in 56% of EBV positive NPC-cases with 100% specificity. Taken together, this suggests that ITGA9 might be a TSG in NPC that is involved in tumor cell biology. The possibility of using ITGA9 methylation as a marker for early detection of NPC should further be explored.
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| 3. |
- Tuomi, Tiinamaija, et al.
(författare)
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Increased Melatonin Signaling Is a Risk Factor for Type 2 Diabetes
- 2016
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Ingår i: Cell Metabolism. - : Elsevier BV. - 1550-4131 .- 1932-7420. ; 23:6, s. 1067-1077
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a global pandemic. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified >100 genetic variants associated with the disease, including a common variant in the melatonin receptor 1 b gene (MTNR1B). Here, we demonstrate increased MTNR1B expression in human islets from risk G-allele carriers, which likely leads to a reduction in insulin release, increasing T2D risk. Accordingly, in insulin-secreting cells, melatonin reduced cAMP levels, and MTNR1B overexpression exaggerated the inhibition of insulin release exerted by melatonin. Conversely, mice with a disruption of the receptor secreted more insulin. Melatonin treatment in a human recall-by-genotype study reduced insulin secretion and raised glucose levels more extensively in risk G-allele carriers. Thus, our data support a model where enhanced melatonin signaling in islets reduces insulin secretion, leading to hyperglycemia and greater future risk of T2D. The findings also imply that melatonin physiologically serves to inhibit nocturnal insulin release.
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| 4. |
- Wang, Yunzhang, et al.
(författare)
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Comprehensive longitudinal study of epigenetic mutations in aging
- 2019
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Ingår i: Clinical Epigenetics. - : BioMed Central. - 1868-7083 .- 1868-7075. ; 11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The role of DNA methylation in aging has been widely studied. However, epigenetic mutations, here defined as aberrant methylation levels compared to the distribution in a population, are less understood. Hence, we investigated longitudinal accumulation of epigenetic mutations, using 994 blood samples collected at up to five time points from 375 individuals in old ages.Results: We verified earlier cross-sectional evidence on the increase of epigenetic mutations with age, and identified important contributing factors including sex, CD19+ B cells, genetic background, cancer diagnosis, and technical artifacts. We further classified epigenetic mutations into High/Low Methylation Outliers (HMO/LMO) according to their changes in methylation, and specifically studied methylation sites (CpGs) that were prone to mutate (frequently mutated CpGs). We validated four epigenetically mutated CpGs using pyrosequencing in 93 samples. Furthermore, by using twins, we concluded that the age-related accumulation of epigenetic mutations was not related to genetic factors, hence driven by stochastic or environmental effects.Conclusions: Here we conducted a comprehensive study of epigenetic mutation and highlighted its important role in aging process and cancer development.
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| 5. |
- Wang, Yunzhang, et al.
(författare)
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Epigenetic influences on aging : a longitudinal genome-wide methylation study in old Swedish twins
- 2018
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Ingår i: Epigenetics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1559-2294 .- 1559-2308. ; 13:9, s. 975-987
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Age-related changes in DNA methylation were observed in cross-sectional studies, but longitudinal evidence is still limited. Here, we aimed to characterize longitudinal age-related methylation patterns using 1011 blood samples collected from 385 Swedish twins (age at entry: mean 69 and standard deviation 9.7, 73 monozygotic and 96 dizygotic pairs) up to five times (mean 2.6) over 20 years (mean 8.7). We identified 1316 age-associated methylation sites (P<1.3x10(-7)) using a longitudinal epigenome-wide association study design. We measured how estimated cellular compositions changed with age and how much they confounded the age effect. We validated the results in two independent longitudinal cohorts, where 118 CpGs were replicated in Prospective Investigation of the Vasculature in Uppsala Seniors (PIVUS, 390 samples) (P<3.9x10(-5)), 594 in Lothian Birth Cohort (LBC, 3018 samples) (P<5.1x10(-5)) and 63 in both. Functional annotation of age-associated CpGs showed enrichment in CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) and other transcription factor binding sites. We further investigated genetic influences on methylation and found no interaction between age and genetic effects in the 1316 age-associated CpGs. Moreover, in the same CpGs, methylation differences within twin pairs increased with 6.4% over 10 years, where monozygotic twins had smaller intra-pair differences than dizygotic twins. In conclusion, we show that age-related methylation changes persist in a longitudinal perspective, and are fairly stable across cohorts. The changes are under genetic influence, although this effect is independent of age. Moreover, methylation variability increase over time, especially in age-associated CpGs, indicating the increase of environmental contributions on DNA methylation with age.
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