ArticlePLoS genetics2020
The DNA methylome of human sperm is distinct from blood with little evidence for tissue-consistent obesity associations.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Identifying potential genetic biomarkers for sperm dysfunction through whole-genome sequencing.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Exploring Tissue- and Sex-Specific DNA Methylation in Cattle Using a Pan-Mammalian Infinium Array.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- The association between DNA methylation and human height and a prospective model of DNA methylation-based height prediction.Human genetics · 2024Article
- Inheritance of paternal lifestyles and exposures through sperm DNA methylation.Nature reviews. Urology · 2023Review
- recountmethylation enables flexible analysis of public blood DNA methylation array data.Bioinformatics advances · 2023Article
- Accelerated biological aging in COVID-19 patients.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Human methylome variation across Infinium 450K data on the Gene Expression Omnibus.NAR genomics and bioinformatics · 2021Article
- Epigenetics of Male Infertility: The Role of DNA Methylation.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 7 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Epidemiological research suggests that paternal obesity may increase the risk of fathering small for gestational age offspring. Studies in non-human mammals indicate that such associations could be mediated by DNA methylation changes in spermatozoa that influence offspring development in utero. Human obesity is associated with differential DNA methylation in peripheral blood. It is unclear, however, whether this differential DNA methylation is reflected in spermatozoa. We profiled genome-wide DNA methylation using the Illumina MethylationEPIC array in a cross-sectional study of matched human blood and sperm from lean (discovery n = 47; replication n = 21) and obese (n = 22) males to analyse tissue covariation of DNA methylation, and identify obesity-associated methylomic signatures. We found that DNA methylation signatures of human blood and spermatozoa are highly discordant, and methylation levels are correlated at only a minority of CpG sites (~1%). At the majority of these sites, DNA methylation appears to be influenced by genetic variation. Obesity-associated DNA methylation in blood was not generally reflected in spermatozoa, and obesity was not associated with altered covariation patterns or accelerated epigenetic ageing in the two tissues. However, one cross-tissue obesity-specific hypermethylated site (cg19357369; chr4:2429884; P = 8.95 × 10-8; 2% DNA methylation difference) was identified, warranting replication and further investigation. When compared to a wide range of human somatic tissue samples (n = 5,917), spermatozoa displayed differential DNA methylation across pathways enriched in transcriptional regulation. Overall, human sperm displays a unique DNA methylation profile that is highly discordant to, and practically uncorrelated with, that of matched peripheral blood. We observed that obesity was only nominally associated with differential DNA methylation in sperm, and therefore suggest that spermatozoal DNA methylation is an unlikely mediator of intergenerational effects of metabolic traits.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.