Trait related and differential DNA Methylation in obese and normal weight Brazilian women.

Obesity has been linked to lifestyle and recently have been associated to DNA methylation changes that may cause alterations in the adipogenesis and lipid storage processes and contribute to the pathological state. We enrolled Obese (Ob) and Normal Weight (NW) women. We observed that DNA methylation patterns are different between normal weight and obese women. This can alter gene expression patterns affecting adipogenesis and lipid storage. This results confirms that an obesogenic lifestyle can promote epigenetic changes in the human DNA. Peripheral blood samples were collected to perform total leucocytes DNA extraction and bisulfite conversion in order to hybridize the samples on the Infinium Methylation Beadchip. Bioinformatics analysis were done using the Champ pipeline. A total of 32 women participated in the study, 15 obese (IMC=45.1± 5.4 kg/m2; Age=39.3±11.5 years old) and 17 normal weight (IMC=22.5±1.7 kg/m2; Age=39.1 ±13.4 years old).