Racial disparities in epigenetic aging of the right vs left colon

M Devall, X Sun, F Yuan, GS Cooper… - JNCI: Journal of the …, 2021 - academic.oup.com
M Devall, X Sun, F Yuan, GS Cooper, J Willis, DJ Weisenberger, G Casey, L Li
JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2021academic.oup.com
There are well-documented racial differences in age-of-onset and laterality of colorectal
cancer. Epigenetic age acceleration is postulated to be an underlying factor. However,
comparative studies of side-specific colonic tissue epigenetic aging are lacking. Here, we
performed DNA methylation analysis of matched right and left biopsies of normal colon from
128 individuals. Among African Americans (n= 88), the right colon showed accelerated
epigenetic aging as compared with individual-matched left colon (1.51 years; 95 …
Abstract
There are well-documented racial differences in age-of-onset and laterality of colorectal cancer. Epigenetic age acceleration is postulated to be an underlying factor. However, comparative studies of side-specific colonic tissue epigenetic aging are lacking. Here, we performed DNA methylation analysis of matched right and left biopsies of normal colon from 128 individuals. Among African Americans (n = 88), the right colon showed accelerated epigenetic aging as compared with individual-matched left colon (1.51 years; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.62 to 2.40 years; 2-sided P =.001). In contrast, among European Americans (n = 40), the right colon shows remarkable age deceleration (1.93 years; 95% CI = 0.65 to 3.21 years; 2-sided P =.004). Further, epigenome-wide analysis of DNA methylation identifies a unique pattern of hypermethylation in African American right colon. Our study is the first to report such race and side-specific differences in epigenetic aging of normal colon, providing novel insight into the observed younger age-of-onset and relative preponderance of right-side colon neoplasia in African Americans.
Oxford University Press