The EPIPREG project
Genetics and epigenetics in a population-based, prospective cohort of pregnant women
Background:
Since insulin resistance increases naturally in all pregnancies, pregnancy is a valuable model to study type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases related to insulin resistance.
Aim:
discover epigenetic marks with potential to prevent or delay onset, or improve treatment of diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases or trait and understand more about the underlying mechanisms.
Methods:
We have quantified epigenome-wide DNA methylation (Infinium methylationEPIC beadchip) in all Europeans (n=312) and South Asians (n=168) in the STORK Groruddalen cohort. We perform Epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) to explore associations between a trait and DNA methylation at CpG sites across the entire genome, follow-up analysis such as methylation quantitative trait loci (mQTL), GO enrichment, and further lookups in publicly available summary data (such as expression quantitative trait methylation - eQTM).
News from 2022:
In 2022, our statistician Riccardo Parviero helped us by evaluating different models and methods for trans-ethnic epigenome-wide association studies. Our PhD student Nicolas Fragoso Bargas was very successful in publishing his epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of insulin resistance in pregnancy in the prestigious journal Diabetes, and also published an EWAS of serum folate. He plan to submit his PhD early in 2023. Teresa Linares Pineda had a 3 months research stay in the EPIPREG research group as a part of her PhD project, working with methylation risk scores in the EPIPREG sample.
Publications 2022:
Pervjakova N, Moen GH, Borges MC, Ferreira T, Cook JP, Allard C, Beaumont RN, Canouil M, Hatem G, Heiskala A, Joensuu A, Karhunen V, Kwak SH, Lin FTJ, Liu J, Rifas-Shiman S, Tam CH, Tam WH, Thorleifsson G, Andrew T, Auvinen J, Bhowmik B, Bonnefond A, Delahaye F, Demirkan A, Froguel P, Haller-Kikkatalo K, Hardardottir H, Hummel S, Hussain A, Kajantie E, Keikkala E, Khamis A, Lahti J, Lekva T, Mustaniemi S, Sommer C, Tagoma A, Tzala E, Uibo R, Vääräsmäki M, Villa PM, Birkeland KI, Bouchard L, Duijn CM, Finer S, Groop L, Hämäläinen E, Hayes GM, Hitman GA, Jang HC, Järvelin MR, Jenum AK, Laivuori H, Ma RC, Melander O, Oken E, Park KS, Perron P, Prasad RB, Qvigstad E, Sebert S, Stefansson K, Steinthorsdottir V, Tuomi T, Hivert MF, Franks PW, McCarthy MI, Lindgren CM, Freathy RM, Lawlor DA, Morris AP, Mägi R. Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of gestational diabetes mellitus highlights genetic links with type 2 diabetes. Hum Mol Genet. 2022 Sep 29;31(19):3377-3391. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddac050