Monozygotic twin pairs discordant for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis carry both common and unique epigenetic differences relevant to disease

Abstract

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating late-onset neurodegenerative disorder in which only a small proportion of patients carry an identifiable causative genetic lesion. Despite high heritability estimates, a genetic etiology for most sporadic ALS remains elusive. Here we report the epigenetic profiling of five monozygotic twin pairs discordant for ALS in whom previous genome sequencing excluded a genetic basis for their disease discordance. By studying cytosine methylation patterns in peripheral blood DNA we identified thousands of large between-twin differences at individual CpGs. While the specific sites of difference were largely idiosyncratic to a twin pair, a proportion (involving GABA signalling) were common to all affected individuals. In both instances the differences occurred within genes and pathways related to neurobiological function and dysfunction. Our findings reveal widespread changes in epigenetic marks in ALS patients, consistent with an epigenetic contribution to disease. These findings may be exploited to develop blood-based biomarkers of ALS and develop further insight into disease pathogenesis. We expect that our findings will provide a useful point of reference for further large scale studies of sporadic ALS.