Chunk #18 — Results — Associations of DNA Methylation with Physical Aggression in the Loci of Transcriptional Regulators of Differentially Expressed Cytokines
The microarray used in this study included the genomic loci of three transcription factors, NFkB1, NFAT5 and STAT6 that are classical regulators of the cytokines analyzed above. Differentially methylated regions between the CPA and control groups were identified throughout the loci in both cell types analyzed (Table 2) with both increased and decreased methylation levels in CPA individuals compared to controls. Each locus had at least ten differentially methylated regions (∼1000 bp, log2-fold >0.5, FDR <0.2). Similarly to the cytokine loci, the locations of some differentially methylated regions associated with aggression coincided with the location of regulatory regions such as the promoters (as defined earlier −2000 bp to 1000 bp of TSS) of both STAT6 isoforms as well as in the NFkB1 short transcript (p50) that were more methylated in the CPA group (Table 2). We found 37 differentially methylated regions associated with CPA within the NFkB locus, 21 of these regions were located within the gene body (Figure S4). In the NFAT5 locus, 19 differentially methylated regions between CPA and controls were identified and all of them except one
