RAMEN: Dissecting individual, additive and interactive gene-environment contributions to DNA methylome variability in cord blood
摘要
Genetic variation and environmental exposures are amongst the main factors associated with inter-individual DNA methylation variability. However, the prevalence and genomic context of individual, additive, and interactive gene-environment effects remains unclear. We present RAMEN, an R package that dissects genome-exposome contributions to microarray Variably Methylated Loci using machine learning and statistical techniques. Analyzing cord blood samples from CHILD and PREDO (overall n = 1662), we identify genetic variants as key contributors to DNA methylation variability, usually in additive and interactive combinations with the environment. We provide a detailed catalogue of cord blood Variably Methylated Loci and the gene-environment contribution to their variability.