Umbilical cord blood DNA methylation in children who later develop type 1 diabetes

Abstract

<p><strong>Aims/hypothesis:</strong> Distinct DNA methylation patterns have recently been observed to precede type 1 diabetes in whole blood collected from young children. Our aim was to determine whether perinatal DNA methylation is associated with later progression to type 1 diabetes.<br></p><p><strong>Methods:</strong> Reduced representation bisulphite sequencing (RRBS) analysis was performed on umbilical cord blood samples collected within the Finnish Type 1 Diabetes Prediction and Prevention (DIPP) Study. Children later diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and/or who tested positive for multiple islet autoantibodies (<i>n</i> = 43) were compared with control individuals (<i>n</i> = 79) who remained autoantibody-negative throughout the DIPP follow-up until 15 years of age. Potential confounding factors related to the pregnancy and the mother were included in the analysis.<br></p><p><strong>Results:</strong> No differences in the umbilical cord blood methylation patterns were observed between the cases and controls at a false discovery rate <0.05.<br></p><p><strong>Conclusions/interpretation:</strong> Based on our results, differences between children who progress to type 1 diabetes and those who remain healthy throughout childhood are not yet present in the perinatal DNA methylome. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that such differences would be found in a larger dataset.<br></p>