Abstract
Most disease-associated genetic variants are noncoding, making it challenging to design experiments to understand their functional consequences. Identification of expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) has been a powerful approach to infer the downstream effects of disease-associated variants, but most of these variants remain unexplained. The analysis of DNA methylation, a key component of the epigenome, offers highly complementary data on the regulatory potential of genomic regions. Here we show that disease-associated variants have widespread effects on DNA methylation in trans that likely reflect differential occupancy of trans binding sites by cis-regulated transcription factors. Using multiple omics data sets from 3,841 Dutch individuals, we identified 1,907 established trait-associated SNPs that affect the methylation levels of 10,141 different CpG sites in trans (false discovery rate (FDR) < 0.05). These included SNPs that affect both the expression of a nearby transcription factor (such as NFKB1, CTCF and NKX2-3) and methylation of its respective binding site across the genome. Trans methylation QTLs effectively expose the downstream effects of disease-associated variants.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 131-138 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Nature Genetics |
Volume | 49 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 5 Dec 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2017 |
Funding
Funders | Funder number |
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BBMRI-NL | |
Dutch Research Council | |
Dutch Government | |
FP7/2007 | |
Seventh Framework Programme | 259867 |
Seventh Framework Programme | |
European Research Council | 637640 |
European Research Council | |
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | ZonMW-VIDI 917.14.374, 184.021.007 |
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek |
Keywords
- Journal Article
Cohort Studies
- Netherlands Twin Register (NTR)