Trial reportEBioMedicine2018
Epigenetic signatures of starting and stopping smoking.
Trial report in EBioMedicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed, 106 citations in OpenAlex.
- Airway cell-cell communication in smoking through integration of spatial and single-cell transcriptomics.Respiratory research · 2026Article
- Identification of DNA methylation signatures of smoking in women and associations with cardiovascular disease mortality.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Proteomic prediction of disease largely reflects environmental risk exposure.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Data Resource Profile: Whole-Blood DNA Methylation Resource in Generation Scotland (MeGS).International journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Pre-existing DNA methylation signatures in the prefrontal cortex of alcohol-naïve nonhuman primates define neural vulnerability for future risky ethanol consumption.Neurobiology of disease · 2025Article
- A blood- and brain-based EWAS of smoking.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Airway Spatial Transcriptomics in Smoking.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Review
- Blood-based epigenome-wide association study and prediction of alcohol consumption.Clinical epigenetics · 2025Article
- Lessons we learned from the Lothian Birth Cohorts of 1921 and 1936.Genomic psychiatry : advancing science from genes to society · 2025Article
- The Intersection of Epigenetics and Senolytics in Mechanisms of Aging and Therapeutic Approaches.Biomolecules · 2024Review
- Article
- Exploring the Relationships between Lifestyle Patterns and Epigenetic Biological Age Measures in Men.Biomedicines · 2024Article
- Cigarette Smoking and E-cigarette Use Induce Shared DNA Methylation Changes Linked to Carcinogenesis.Cancer research · 2024Article
- Comprehensive evaluation of smoking exposures and their interactions on DNA methylation.EBioMedicine · 2024Article
- FAS gene expression, prognostic significance and molecular interactions in lung cancer.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Article
- Waterpipe and cigarette epigenome analysis reveals markers implicated in addiction and smoking type inference.Environment international · 2023Article
- The Reversion of the Epigenetic Signature of Coronary Heart Disease in Response to Smoking Cessation.Genes · 2023Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
16 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMultiple studies have made robust associations between differential DNA methylation and exposure to cigarette smoke. But whether a DNA methylation phenotype is established immediately upon exposure, or only after prolonged exposure is less well-established. Here, we assess DNA methylation patterns from peripheral blood samples in current smokers in response to dose and duration of exposure, along with the effects of smoking cessation on DNA methylation in former smokers.
methodsDimensionality reduction was applied to DNA methylation data at 90 previously identified smoking-associated CpG sites for over 4900 individuals in the Generation Scotland cohort. K-means clustering was performed to identify clusters associated with current and never smoker status based on these methylation patterns. Cluster assignments were assessed with respect to duration of exposure in current smokers (years as a smoker), time since smoking cessation in former smokers (years), and dose (cigarettes per day).
findingsTwo clusters were specified, corresponding to never smokers (97·5% of whom were assigned to Cluster 1) and current smokers (81·1% of whom were assigned to Cluster 2). The exposure time point from which >50% of current smokers were assigned to the smoker-enriched cluster varied between 5 and 9 years in heavier smokers and between 15 and 19 years in lighter smokers. Low-dose former smokers were more likely to be assigned to the never smoker-enriched cluster in the first year following cessation. In contrast, a period of at least two years was required before the majority of former high-dose smokers were assigned to the never smoker-enriched cluster.
interpretationOur findings suggest that smoking-associated DNA methylation changes are a result of prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke, and can be reversed following cessation. The length of time in which these signatures are established and recovered is dose dependent. Should DNA methylation-based signatures of smoking status be predictive of smoking-related health outcomes, our findings may provide an additional criterion on which to stratify risk.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.