However, it remains unclear if this is a direct or indirect selection for TSG inactivation across phenotypically important pathways; if the process is stochastic and less phenotypically driven or whether a dose response exists between exposure and methylation extent.
Our objective was to evaluate associations between prenatal cadmium exposure, DNA methylation and birth weight.
These results reinforce the link between environmental exposures, DNA methylation and breast cancer, and support a role for AIMS as a rapid, affordable screening method to identify environmentally induced DNA methylation changes that occur in tumourigenesis.
We used existing data to explore the relationship between exposure to PM2.5 and DNA methylation over time because individuals provided blood samples collected both pre- and post-work shift, had personal PM2.5 occupational exposure measurements, and detailed work histories.
An association between methylation and exposure to carcinogens such as viruses has been observed before but has not led to mechanistic insights into the process (Boland et al. 2005; Shen et al. 2002).
Strong associations between methylation and exposure or outcome should be taken into account when estimating surrogate components, using analyses such as those implemented in RefFreeEWAS (49), surrogate variable analysis (50) in SVA (12) or SVA-PLS (51) and the Bayesian factor analysis package PEER (13, 52).
There was no statistically significant relationship between BMP methylation and tobacco exposure (Table 2).
We measured DNA methylation in cord blood mononuclear cells, which is a mixture of different cell types with partly different methylation patterns, in particular for cell type-specific immune functions that may blur associations between DNA methylation and Cd exposure.
To evaluate the association between DNA methylation and chronic exposure to PM2.5, linear mixed effect models evaluated the relationship between the number of years each participant worked as a boilermaker and DNA methylation (Table 5).
We used these gene-specific methylation scores, or "weights," to investigate the association between DNA methylation and environmental exposures.
