Epigenome-wide association study and epigenetic age acceleration associated with cigarette smoking among Costa Rican adults

Andres Cardenas; Simone Ecker; Raj P Fadadu; Karen Huen; Allan Orozco; Lisa M McEwen; Hannah-Ruth Engelbrecht; Nicole Gladish; Michael S Kobor; Luis Rosero-Bixby; William H Dow; David H Rehkopf

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-08160-w

Epigenome-wide association study and epigenetic age acceleration associated with cigarette smoking among Costa Rican adults

Sci Rep. 2022 Mar 11;12(1):4277. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-08160-w.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, 2121 Berkeley Way, #5121, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. andres.cardenas@berkeley.edu.
² UCL Cancer Institute, University College London, London, UK.
³ School of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁴ Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, 2121 Berkeley Way, #5121, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁵ School of Health Technology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Costa Rica (UCR), San José, San Pedro, Costa Rica.
⁶ Faculty of Human and Social Development, School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
⁷ Department of Medical Genetics, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, and BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
⁸ Centro Centroamericano de Población (CCP), Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica.
⁹ Division of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Epidemiology and Population Health and Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA.

Abstract

Smoking-associated DNA methylation (DNAm) signatures are reproducible among studies of mostly European descent, with mixed evidence if smoking accelerates epigenetic aging and its relationship to longevity. We evaluated smoking-associated DNAm signatures in the Costa Rican Study on Longevity and Healthy Aging (CRELES), including participants from the high longevity region of Nicoya. We measured genome-wide DNAm in leukocytes, tested Epigenetic Age Acceleration (EAA) from five clocks and estimates of telomere length (DNAmTL), and examined effect modification by the high longevity region. 489 participants had a mean (SD) age of 79.4 (10.8) years, and 18% were from Nicoya. Overall, 7.6% reported currently smoking, 35% were former smokers, and 57.4% never smoked. 46 CpGs and five regions (e.g. AHRR, SCARNA6/SNORD39, SNORA20, and F2RL3) were differentially methylated for current smokers. Former smokers had increased Horvath's EAA (1.69-years; 95% CI 0.72, 2.67), Hannum's EAA (0.77-years; 95% CI 0.01, 1.52), GrimAge (2.34-years; 95% CI1.66, 3.02), extrinsic EAA (1.27-years; 95% CI 0.34, 2.21), intrinsic EAA (1.03-years; 95% CI 0.12, 1.94) and shorter DNAmTL (- 0.04-kb; 95% CI - 0.08, - 0.01) relative to non-smokers. There was no evidence of effect modification among residents of Nicoya. Our findings recapitulate previously reported and novel smoking-associated DNAm changes in a Latino cohort.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Acceleration
Adult
Aged
Cigarette Smoking* / adverse effects
Cigarette Smoking* / genetics
Costa Rica / epidemiology
DNA
DNA Methylation
Epigenesis, Genetic
Epigenome*
Hispanic or Latino
Humans

Substances

DNA

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

Grants and funding