Serum Dioxin and DNA Methylation in the Sperm of Operation Ranch Hand Veterans Exposed to Agent Orange

Purpose: We studied dioxin exposures and DNA methylation in sperm in 37 men from the Air Force Health Study Methods: We compared methylation levels in subjects with no, low, medium, and high dioxin levels using EWAS and looking at regions of DNA. We compared our results to those from a Russian study Results: No loci were found to be significantly associated with dioxin exposure in the EWAS when controlling for false discovery rate. Region H19 was found to have significant associations. Five of our loci of interest overlapped with significant findings from the Russian study 450K methylation array run on sperm cells from men in Air Force Health Study