Abstract
Aim: Statins lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, the exact mechanisms of statins remain unknown. We investigated whether statin therapy associates with epigenetics in Type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients. Materials & methods: DNA methylation was analyzed in blood from newly diagnosed T2D patients in All New Diabetics in Scania (ANDIS) and a replication cohort All New Diabetics in Uppsala County (ANDiU). Results: Seventy-nine sites were differentially methylated between cases on statins and controls (false discovery rate <5%) in ANDIS. These include previously statin-associated methylation sites annotated to DHCR24 (cg17901584), ABCG1 (cg27243685) and SC4MOL (cg05119988). Differential methylation of two sites related to cholesterol biosynthesis and immune response, cg17901584 (DHCR24) and cg23011663 (ARIH2), were replicated in ANDiU. Conclusion: Statin therapy associates with epigenetic modifications in T2D patients.
Supplementary data
To view the supplementary data that accompany this paper please visit the journal website at: www.tandfonline.com/doi/suppl/10.2217/epi-2020-0442
Acknowledgments
We thank M Sterner and the Swegene Centre for Integrative Biology at Lund University (SCIBLU) genomics facility at Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
Novo Nordisk foundation, Swedish Research Council, Region Skåne (ALF), H2020-Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement number 706081 (EpiHope), Hjärt Lund fonden, Exodiab, Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research for IRC15-0067, Swedish Diabetes Foundation, European Research Council-Consolidator (ERC-Co) grant (PAINTBOX no.: 725840). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Ethical conduct of research
The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.
Data sharing statement
Data are deposited at the LUDC repository (www.LUDC/lu.se/resources/repository) and are available upon request.