DNA methylation profiling of male human pancreatic islets identifies loci for type 2 diabetes

Little is known about the contribution of the epigenome to the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes (T2D). Here we have used genome-wide DNA methylation profiling to obtain the first comprehensive DNA methylation data set for human T2D pancreatic islets. Therefore, we analyzed the methylation profile of 27,578 CpG sites affiliated to more than 14,000 genes in 16 samples of pancreatic islets, 11 normal and 5 type 2-diabetic. Keywords: DNA methylation Keywords: Methylation profiling by array We measured the methylation status of the 27,578 CpG sites (Human Methylation27 DNA BeadChip array) in genomic DNA obtained from pnacreatic islets of 11 non-diabetic and 5 type-2-diabetic male human donors to identify genes that are differentially methylated in T2D.