Bioinformatic Platform, Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga (IBIMA - Plataforma Bionand), 29590, Málaga, Spain.
Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga (IBIMA - Plataforma Bionand), Málaga, Spain.
J Mol Med (Berl). 2024 Nov;102(11):1315-1325. doi: 10.1007/s00109-024-02475-z. Epub 2024 Sep 3.
Epigenetic alterations play a pivotal role in conditions influenced by environmental factors such as overweight and obesity. Many of these changes are tissue-specific, which entails a problem in its study since obtaining human tissue is a complex and invasive practice. While blood is widely used as a surrogate biomarker, it cannot directly extrapolate the evidence found in blood to tissue. Moreover, the intricacies of metabolic diseases add a new layer of complexity, as obesity leads to significant alterations in adipose tissue, potentially causing associated pathologies that can disrupt existing correlations seen in healthy individuals. Here, our objective was to determine which epigenetic markers exhibit correlations between blood and adipose tissue, regardless of the metabolic status. We collected paired blood and adipose tissue samples from 64 patients with morbidity obesity and non-obese and employed the MethylationEPIC 850 K array for analysis. We found that only a small fraction, specifically 4.3% (corresponding to 34,825 CpG sites), of the sites showed statistically significant correlations (R ≥ 0.6) between blood and adipose tissue. Within this subset, 5327 CpG sites exhibited a strong correlation (R ≥ 0.8) between blood and adipose tissue. Our findings suggest that the majority of epigenetic markers in peripheral blood do not reliably reflect changes occurring in visceral adipose tissues. However, it is important to note that there exists a distinct set of epigenetic markers that can indeed mirror changes in adipose tissue within blood samples. KEY MESSAGES: More than 8% of methylation sites exhibit similarity between blood and adipose tissues, regardless of BMI The correlation percentage between blood and adipose tissue is strongly influenced by gender The principal genes implicated in this correlation are related to metabolism or the immunological system.
表观遗传改变在受环境因素影响的疾病中起着关键作用，例如超重和肥胖。这些变化中的许多都是组织特异性的，这给研究带来了一个问题，因为获取人体组织是一个复杂和侵入性的过程。虽然血液被广泛用作替代生物标志物，但它不能直接将在血液中发现的证据外推到组织中。此外，代谢疾病的复杂性增加了一个新的层面，因为肥胖会导致脂肪组织发生重大变化，可能导致相关的病理变化，从而破坏健康个体中存在的现有相关性。在这里，我们的目的是确定哪些表观遗传标记在不考虑代谢状态的情况下，在血液和脂肪组织之间存在相关性。我们从 64 名患有病态肥胖和非肥胖的患者中收集了配对的血液和脂肪组织样本，并使用 MethylationEPIC 850 K 阵列进行了分析。我们发现，只有一小部分（具体来说，占 4.3%，对应于 34,825 个 CpG 位点）的位点在血液和脂肪组织之间表现出统计学上显著的相关性（R≥0.6）。在这个亚集中，有 5327 个 CpG 位点在血液和脂肪组织之间表现出很强的相关性（R≥0.8）。我们的研究结果表明，外周血中的大多数表观遗传标记不能可靠地反映内脏脂肪组织中发生的变化。然而，需要注意的是，存在一组独特的表观遗传标记，可以确实反映血液样本中脂肪组织的变化。关键信息： 1. 无论 BMI 如何，超过 8%的甲基化位点在血液和脂肪组织之间具有相似性。 2. 血液和脂肪组织之间的相关性百分比强烈受性别影响。 3. 与这种相关性相关的主要基因与代谢或免疫系统有关。
