Genome-wide associations between alcohol consumption and blood DNA methylation: evidence from twin study.

Alcohol intake alters DNA methylation profiles and methylation might mediate the association between alcohol and disease, but limited number of positive CpG sites repeatedly replicated. In total, 57 monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs discordant for alcohol drinking from the Chinese National Twin Registry and 158 MZ and dizygotic twin pairs in the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging were evaluated. DNA methylation was detected using the Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. Among candidate CpG sites, cg07326074 was significantly correlated with drinking after adjusting for covariates in MZ twins in both datasets but not in the entire sample or dizygotic twins. The hypermethylation of cg07326074, located in the tumor-promoting gene , was associated with alcohol consumption.