Smoking-induced expression of the GPR15 gene indicates its potential role in chronic inflammatory pathologies

Kõks, G., Uudelepp, M-L, Limbach, M., Peterson, P., Reimann, E. and Kõks, S. (2015) Smoking-induced expression of the GPR15 gene indicates its potential role in chronic inflammatory pathologies. The American Journal of Pathology, 185 (11). pp. 2898-2906.

Abstract

Despite the described clear epigenetic effects of smoking, the effect of smoking on genome-wide gene expression in the blood is obscure. We therefore studied the smoking-induced changes in the gene-expression profile of the peripheral blood. RNA was extracted from the whole blood of 48 individuals with a detailed smoking history (24 never-smokers, 16 smokers, and 8 ex-smokers). Gene-expression profiles were evaluated with RNA sequencing, and results were analyzed separately in 24 men and 24 women. In the male smokers, 13 genes were statistically significantly (false-discovery rate <0.1) differentially expressed; in female smokers, 5 genes. Although most of the differentially expressed genes were different between the male and female smokers, the G-protein–coupled receptor 15 gene (GPR15) was differentially expressed in both male and female smokers compared with never-smokers. Analysis of GPR15 methylation identified significantly greater hypomethylation in smokers compared with that in never-smokers. GPR15 is the chemoattractant receptor that regulates T-cell migration and immunity. Up-regulation of GPR15 could explain to some extent the health hazards of smoking with regard to chronic inflammatory diseases.

Publication Type:	Journal Article
Publisher:	Elsevier
Copyright:	© 2015 American Society for Investigative Pathology.
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/51605

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