Longitudinal Epigenome-Wide Analysis of Kidney Transplant Recipients Pretransplant and Posttransplant

INTRODUCTION: Kidney transplantation remains the gold standard of treatment for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), with improved patient outcomes compared with dialysis. Epigenome-Wide Association Analysis (EWAS) of DNA methylation may identify markers that contribute to an individual’s risk of adverse transplant outcomes, yet only a limited number of EWAS have been conducted in kidney transplant recipients. This EWAS aimed to interrogate the methylation profile of a kidney transplant recipient cohort with minimal posttransplant complications, exploring differences in samples pretransplant and posttransplant. METHODS: We compared differentially methylated cytosine-phosphate-guanine sites (dmCpGs) in samples derived from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of the same kidney transplant recipients, collected both pretransplant and posttransplant (N = 154), using the Infinium MethylationEPIC microarray (Illumina, San Diego, CA). Recipients received kidneys from deceased donors and had a mean of 17 years of follow-up. RESULTS: Five top-ranked dmCpGs were significantly different at false discovery rate (FDR) adjusted P ≤ 9 × 10(−8); cg23597162 within JAZF1, cg25187293 within BTNL8, cg17944885, located between ZNF788P and ZNF625-ZNF20, cg14655917 located between ASB4 and PDK4 and cg09839120 located between GIMAP6 and EIF2AP3. CONCLUSION: Five dmCpGs were identified at the generally accepted EWAS critical significance level of FDR adjusted P (P(FDRadj)) ≤ 9 × 10(−8), including cg23597162 (within JAZF1) and cg17944885, which have prior associations with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Comparing individuals with no evidence of posttransplant complications (N = 105) demonstrated that 693,555 CpGs (89.57%) did not display any significant difference in methylation (P(FDRadj) ≥ 0.05), thereby this study establishes an important reference for future epigenetic studies that seek to identify markers of posttransplant complications.