Methylation data from stored peripheral blood leukocytes from African American participants in the GENOA study with Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip

African-American individuals of the GENOA study The Genetic Epidemiology Network of Arteriopathy (GENOA) study is a community-based study of hypertensive sibships that was designed to investigate the genetics of hypertension and target organ damage. The study includes African Americans (AA) from Jackson. In the initial phase of GENOA (Phase I: 1996-2001), all members of sibships containing at least 2 individuals with essential hypertension clinically diagnosed before age 60 were invited to participate, including both hypertensive and normotensive siblings. The exclusion criteria for GENOA included secondary hypertension, alcoholism or drug abuse, pregnancy, insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, or active malignancy. Eighty percent of AA (N=1,482) from the initial study population returned for the second examination (Phase II: 2001-2005). Demographic information, medical history, clinical characteristics, lifestyle factors, and blood samples were collected in each phase. Written informed consent was obtained from all subjects and approval was granted by participating institutional review boards (University of Michigan, University of Mississippi Medical Center, and Mayo Clinic). Genomic DNA was extracted from stored peripheral blood leukocytes that was collected at Phase-1 (N=422) using AutoGen FlexStar (AutoGen, Holliston, MA). Bisulfite conversion was performed with the EZ DNA Methylation Kit (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA), and methylation was assessed using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. In total 418 samples remained after quality control and filtering.

本数据集为GENOA研究（Genetic Epidemiology Network of Arteriopathy，动脉病遗传流行病学网络）中的非裔美国人样本。该研究是一项基于社区的高血压同胞家族队列研究，旨在探究高血压及其靶器官损害的遗传机制。该研究纳入了来自美国杰克逊市的非裔美国人（African American，AA）群体。
在GENOA研究的初始阶段（一期：1996-2001年），研究人员邀请所有符合条件的同胞家族成员参与：该家族至少包含2名在60岁前经临床确诊为原发性高血压的个体，纳入对象同时包括高血压患者与血压正常的同胞。GENOA研究的排除标准包括：继发性高血压、酒精成瘾或药物滥用、妊娠、胰岛素依赖型糖尿病，以及活动性恶性肿瘤。
初始研究队列中80%的非裔美国人（N=1482）参与了第二次随访检查（二期：2001-2005年）。各研究阶段均收集了研究对象的人口统计学信息、病史、临床特征、生活方式因素以及血液样本。所有研究对象均签署了书面知情同意书，本研究经参与合作的机构伦理审查委员会批准（密歇根大学、密西西比大学医学中心、梅奥诊所）。
研究人员从一期收集并保存的外周血白细胞样本（N=422）中提取基因组DNA，提取过程使用AutoGen FlexStar全自动核酸提取仪（AutoGen公司，霍利斯顿，马萨诸塞州）。采用EZ DNA甲基化试剂盒（Zymo Research公司，欧文，加利福尼亚州）进行亚硫酸氢盐转化，随后使用Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450芯片对DNA甲基化水平进行检测。经过质量控制与筛选后，最终共保留418份有效样本。