RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 An epigenome-wide association study of educational attainment (<em>n</em> = 10,767)
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 114637
DO 10.1101/114637
A1 Richard Karlsson Linnér
A1 Riccardo E Marioni
A1 Cornelius A Rietveld
A1 Andrew Simpkin
A1 Neil M Davies
A1 Kyoko Watanabe
A1 Nicola J Armstrong
A1 Kirsi Auro
A1 Clemens Baumbach
A1 Marc Jan Bonder
A1 Jadwiga Buchwald
A1 Giovanni Fiorito
A1 Khadeeja Ismail
A1 Stella Iurato
A1 Anni Joensuu
A1 Pauliina Karell
A1 Silva Kasela
A1 Jari Lahti
A1 Allan F McRae
A1 Pooja R Mandaviya
A1 Ilkka Seppälä
A1 Yunzhang Wang
A1 Laura Baglietto
A1 Elisabeth B Binder
A1 Sarah E Harris
A1 Allison M Hodge
A1 Steve Horvath
A1 Mikko Hurme
A1 Magnus Johannesson
A1 Antti Latvala
A1 Karen A Mather
A1 Sarah E Medland
A1 Andres Metspalu
A1 Lili Milani
A1 Roger L Milne
A1 Alison Pattie
A1 Nancy L Pedersen
A1 Annette Peters
A1 Silvia Polidoro
A1 Katri Räikkönen
A1 Gianluca Severi
A1 John M Starr
A1 Lisette Stolk
A1 Melanie Waldenberger
A1 BIOS Consortium
A1 Johan G Eriksson
A1 Tõnu Esko
A1 Lude Franke
A1 Christian Gieger
A1 Graham G Giles
A1 Sara Hägg
A1 Pekka Jousilahti
A1 Jaakko Kaprio
A1 Mika Kähönen
A1 Terho Lehtimäki
A1 Nicholas G Martin
A1 Joyce B. C van Meurs
A1 Miina Ollikainen
A1 Markus Perola
A1 Danielle Posthuma
A1 Olli T Raitakari
A1 Perminder S Sachdev
A1 Erdogan Taskesen
A1 André G Uitterlinden
A1 Paolo Vineis
A1 Cisca Wijmenga
A1 Margaret J Wright
A1 Caroline Relton
A1 George Davey Smith
A1 Ian J Deary
A1 Philipp D Koellinger
A1 Daniel J Benjamin
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/07/114637.abstract
AB The epigenome has been shown to be influenced by biological factors, such as disease status, and environmental factors, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, and body mass index. Although there is a widespread perception that environmental influences on the epigenome are pervasive and profound, there has been little evidence to date in humans with respect to environmental factors that are biologically distal. Here, we provide evidence on the associations between epigenetic modifications—in our case, CpG methylation—and educational attainment (EA), a biologically distal environmental factor that is arguably among of the most important life-shaping experiences for individuals. Specifically, we report the results of an epigenome-wide association study meta-analysis of EA based on data from 27 cohort studies with a total of 10,767 individuals. While we find that 9 CpG probes are significantly associated with EA, only two remain associated when we restrict the sample to never-smokers. These two are known to be strongly associated with maternal smoking during pregnancy, and thus their association with EA could be due to correlation between EA and maternal smoking. Moreover, their effect sizes on EA are far smaller than the known associations between CpG probes and biologically proximal environmental factors. Two analyses that combine the effects of many probes—polygenic methylation score and epigenetic-clock analyses—both suggest small associations with EA. If our findings regarding EA can be generalized to other biologically distal environmental factors, then they cast doubt on the hypothesis that such factors have large effects on the epigenome.