Purpose: We previously demonstrated that genotype at the OA associated SNP rs11780978, which resides within an intron of PLEC, correlates with differential expression of this gene and with differential methylation of PLEC CG dinucleotides (CpGs). These genetic, transcriptomic and epigenetic analyses were undertaken on cartilage DNA and RNA, and implied that DNA methylation links chondrocyte genotype and phenotype, with this epigenetic mechanism driving the functional impact of the rs11780978 risk signal. PLEC encodes Plectin, a cytoskeletal protein that regulates signalling from the extracellular space to the nucleus. In so doing, Plectin enables cells to respond to external mechanical stimuli and maintain tissue integrity. PLEC is expressed widely and in this study, we set out to test whether the PLEC functional effects that we had discovered were cartilage specific or whether they were active in other joint or non-joint tissues. Methods: RNA and genomic DNA were extracted from cartilage (n=35), infrapatellar fat-pad (n=68), synovium (n=79) and peripheral whole blood (n=54) tissue samples from patients who had undergone hip or knee arthroplasty for OA. Allelic expression imbalance (AEI) at PLEC was assessed by pyrosequencing in individuals heterozygous for the PLEC transcript SNP rs11783799 (pairwise r2=0.93 relative to rs11780978). The AEI was performed on DNA (providing the 1:1 ratio of allelic balance) and cDNA synthesised from the tissue RNA. DNA ratios were compared to cDNA ratios and P-values were calculated using a Mann-Whitney 2-tailed exact test. Methylation analysis of PLEC CpGs was performed by bisulphite conversion of tissue DNA followed by pyrosequencing. Patients were stratified by rs11780978 genotype and methylation levels compared, with P-values calculated using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Results: We observed AEI in synovium (P=0.005) in the same direction as for cartilage, with decreased expression of PLEC correlating with the OA risk-conferring A allele of rs11780978. We did not observe AEI in fat pad (P>0.05) and were unable to test for it in blood due to low expression level of the gene as confirmed by qPCR. The CpG analysis focussed on our two previously reported PLEC CpG clusters; cg19405177 and 7 nearby CpGs (in a 112bp interval), and cg14598846 and 3 adjacent CpGs (in a 23bp interval). In cartilage DNA, we replicated the correlation between rs11780978 genotype and methylation at the cg19405177 cluster (risk-conferring A allele of rs11780978 correlating with increased methylation; P<0.01) and at the cg14598846 cluster (risk-conferring A allele of rs11780978 correlating with decreased methylation; P<0.0001). We observed the same effects and in the same directions for synovium (cg19405177 cluster, P<0.001; cg14598846 cluster, P<0.0001), fat pad (cg19405177 cluster, P<0.05; cg14598846 cluster, P<0.0001) and blood (cg19405177 cluster, P<0.001; cg14598846 cluster, P<0.0001) DNAs. We next created a heat-map displaying the percentage effect of rs11780978 genotype on CpG methylation at the two clusters (Figure 1). This confirmed the effect of genotype on methylation across the four tissue types but highlighted that the effects are strongest in the joint tissues. Conclusions: Our study has revealed that as for cartilage, synovium is a target of the OA association that is functionally operating on PLEC expression and methylation; we observed AEI and a correlation between rs11780978 genotype and methylation for this tissue. In fat pad, although we observed methylation correlations, there was no AEI. This suggests that the functional effect of the association signal is not joint-wide and that there is a difference in sensitivity to epigenetic regulation of PLEC between cartilage/synovium and fat pad. These distinctions point toward regulatory variability in PLEC expression mediated by the same association signal depending on tissue type. This was exemplified further by our analysis of blood, with very low levels of PLEC expression and with a much weaker effect of rs11780978 genotype on methylation. Our study highlights the interplay between OA genetic risk, DNA methylation and gene expression, but reveals clear differences in these effects even for tissues from the same diseased joint.View Large Image Figure ViewerDownload Hi-res image Download (PPT)
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