Abstract P356: The Temporal Relationship Between Body Mass Index and DNA Methylation: Longitudinal Epigenome-Wide Association From the Bogalusa Heart Study

Obesity, as a metabolic disorder, can be either a cause or consequence of epigenetic alterations, but their temporal relationship is unknown. This study assessed the hypothesis that BMI and DNA methylation changes mutually influence each other, dependent on different methylation sites in the human genome. Peripheral leukocyte DNA methylation data on 294,840 CpG sites filtered from 485,577 sites generated by Illumina 450K BeadChip were analyzed in two discovery cohorts (585 whites and 245 blacks) and a longitudinal cohort (95 whites and 43 blacks followed 3.2 years) in the Bogalusa Heart Study (BHS) and 2 replication cohorts (450 twins in Chinese National Twin Study, 456 blacks in Georgia Prevention Institute Epigenetics of Obesity Study). BMI was significantly associated with methylation levels at cg17260706 (negatively), cg13562284 (negatively) and cg15721584 (positively) consistently in the discovery cohorts, and these associations were replicated in both 450 Chinese twins and 456 blacks in the same dir...