B3868 - Investigating oscillating DNA methylation signals to provide insights into biological rhythmicity - 23/09/2021

B number: 
B3868
Principal applicant name: 
Rebecca Richmond | University of Bristol (United Kingdom)
Co-applicants: 
Dr Matthew Suderman, Prof George Davey Smith, Prof Caroline Relton, Dr Paul Yousefi, Mr George Richenberg
Title of project: 
Investigating oscillating DNA methylation signals to provide insights into biological rhythmicity
Proposal summary: 

Cytosine modifications to DNA (such as DNA methylation) have been found to display temporal rhythms. This temporal dimension of epigenetics, coined “chrono-epigenetics”, may have been previously overlooked. In particular, the timing of sample collection may introduce randomness into epigenetic data and may serve as a potentially important correction factor in epigenetic studies. Furthermore, the oscillating nature of cytosines has been suggested to underlie biological rhythmicity, ageing processes and the development of complex diseases such as cancer.

Impact of research: 
Identification of oscillating DNA methylation signals may provide insights into biological rhythmicity, ageing processes and the development of complex diseases. In addition, the use of oscillating DNA methylation sites for predicting the time of sample collection could be particularly useful where this information has not been recorded, and any discordance between predicted and actual collection time of the samples could indicate temporal or circadian misalignment of the participants.
Date proposal received: 
Thursday, 2 September, 2021
Date proposal approved: 
Thursday, 16 September, 2021
Keywords: 
Bioinformatics, Cancer, Microarrays, Statistical methods, Ageing, Biological samples -e.g. blood, cell lines, saliva, etc., Epigenetics, Statistical methods