Genome-wide associations between alcohol consumption and blood DNA methylation: evidence from twin study

Abstract

Aim: Alcohol intake alters DNA methylation profiles and methylation might mediate the association between alcohol and disease, but limited number of positive CpG sites repeatedly replicated. Materials & methods: In total, 57 monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs discordant for alcohol drinking from the Chinese National Twin Registry and 158 MZ and dizygotic twin pairs in the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging were evaluated. DNA methylation was detected using the Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. Results: Among candidate CpG sites, cg07326074 was significantly correlated with drinking after adjusting for covariates in MZ twins in both datasets but not in the entire sample or dizygotic twins. Conclusion: The hypermethylation of cg07326074, located in the tumor-promoting gene C16orf59, was associated with alcohol consumption.

Keywords::

• alcohol
• C16orf59
• CARD10
• CpG sites
• discordant twin design
• DNA methylation
• hypermethylation

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-2021-0039

Acknowledgments

We gratefully appreciate the support from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Qingdao, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Sichuan for their dedication that made this research possible. We acknowledge The Swedish Twin Registry for access to data. Methylation profiling on the Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip was performed by the SNP&SEQ Technology Platform in Uppsala (www.genotyping.se). The facility is part of the National Genomics Infrastructure (NGI) Sweden and Science for Life Laboratory.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (82073633, 81973126, 81573223) and special fund for Health scientific research in the public welfare (201502006, 201002007). SATSA was funded by NIH (grants AG04563 and AG10175), the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Aging, the Swedish Research Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS; grants 97:0147:1B, 2009-0795) and the Swedish Research Council (825-2007-7460 and 825-2009-6141). This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council (2015-03255), The Foundation for Gamla Tjänarinnor (2018-00688), the KI Foundation, the Strategic Research Area in Epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet, Erik Rönnbergs donation for scientific studies in aging and age-related diseases. X Qin was supported by King Gustaf V’s and Queen Victorias Freemason Foundation, The Foundation for Gamla Tjänarinnor (2018-00688), and the China Scholarship Council for one year study at Karolinska Institutet between 2020 and 2021. The SNP&SEQ Platform is also supported by the Swedish Research Council and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The Swedish Twin Registry is managed by Karolinska Institutet and receives funding through the Swedish Research Council under the grant no 2017-00641. 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.

Writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript by Editage using funding from National Natural Science Foundation of China (82073633, 81973126, 81573223).

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.