The Nasal Methylome: A Key to Understanding Allergic Asthma [Illumina]

The goal of this investigation was to establish proof of concept that nasal epithelium can be used as a proxy for the airway epithelium in studies of allergic asthma. We collected PBMCs, nasal epithelia, and bronchial epithelia from 12 subjects with allergic asthma and 12 control subjects without asthma, all non-Hispanic white nonsmoker adults. We conclude that genomic profiling of nasal epithelia captures most disease-relevant changes identified in airway epithelia but also provides additional targets that are most likely influenced by exposures. Thus, epigenetic marks in nasal epithelia may prove useful as a biomarker of disease severity and response to treatment or as a biosensor of the environment in asthma. To determine the effect of allergic asthma–associated methylation changes on gene expression, we examined array-based (Agilent 8x60k) measures of expression of genes nearest DMPs as a function of methylation change across 72 expression arrays and 72 Methylation arrays.