Gene-methylation epistatic analyses via the W-test identifies enriched signals of neuronal genes in patients undergoing lipid-control treatment

In this study, we applied the data set adaptive W-test to measure gene–methylation interactions. Performance was evaluated by the ability to detect a given set of causal markers in the data set obtained from the GAW20. Results from simulati on data analyses showed that the W-test was able to detect most markers. The method was also applied to chromosome 11 of the experimental data set and identified clusters of genes with neuronal and retinal functions, includingMPPED2I, GUCY2E,NAV2, andZBTB16. Genes from theTRIM family were also identified; these genes are potentially related to the regulation of triglyceride levels. Our results suggest that the W-test could be an efficient and effective method to detect gene –methylation interactions. Furthermore, the identified genes suggest an interesting relationship between lipid levels and the etiology of neurological disorders.
Source: BMC Proceedings - Category: Biomedical Science Source Type: research