Epigene Type 1
Professor R. David Leslie
March 2016
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease leading to destruction of insulin- secreting beta cells in the islets of Langerhans. Whilst many genes are associated with the disease, they are unlikely to account for all the disease risk. The ‘missing heritability’ is likely due to non-genetic effects and these likely operate through epigenetic effects. Such epigenetic effects would impact immune response genes in selected cells. Immune-regulatory mechanisms vary among individuals and among cell types, reflecting genetic and epigenetic diversity. Preliminary studies have sought epigenetic effects, which could be associated with autoimmune diseases. We therefore performed the most extensive and highly powered study as part if the EU programme BLUEPRINT using a large cohort of identical twins. Changes in the epigenome, e.g. DNA methylation, could account, to a degree, for the gene-environment interactions that contribute to the risk of developing a disease. Studies of disease epigenome will likely define factors predisposing to that disease and the consequences of the disease.
