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Genes in the blood are not static, 20 percent change with the seasons - such as Vitamin D Receptor – May 2015

Study described several places on the web

  • Your DNA Changes With the Seasons, Just Like the Weather Wired
  • Seasonal immunity: Activity of thousands of genes differs from winter to summer Medical Express
    "In some ways, it's obvious - it helps explain why so many diseases, from heart disease to mental illness, are much worse in the winter months - but no one had appreciated the extent to which this actually occurred.
    One gene of particular interest was ARNTL, which was more active in the summer and less active in the winter. Previous studies have shown that, in mice at least, the gene suppresses inflammation, the body's response to infection; if the gene has the same function in humans, then levels of inflammation will be higher during winter in the northern hemisphere. Inflammation is a risk factor for a range of diseases and hence in winter, those at greatest risk will likely reach the 'threshold' at which the disease becomes a problem much sooner.

Widespread seasonal gene expression reveals annual differences in human immunity and physiology

Nature Communications 6, Article number: 7000 doi:10.1038/ncomms8000
Xaquin Castro Dopico, Marina Evangelou, Ricardo C. Ferreira, Hui Guo, Marcin L. Pekalski, Deborah J. Smyth, Nicholas Cooper, Oliver S. Burren, Anthony J. Fulford, Branwen J. Hennig, Andrew M. Prentice, Anette-G. Ziegler, Ezio Bonifacio, Chris Wallace & John A. Todd
Image
Seasonal variations are rarely considered a contributing component to human tissue function or health, although many diseases and physiological process display annual periodicities. Here we find more than 4,000 protein-coding mRNAs in white blood cells and adipose tissue to have seasonal expression profiles, with inverted patterns observed between Europe and Oceania. We also find the cellular composition of blood to vary by season, and these changes, which differ between the United Kingdom and The Gambia, could explain the gene expression periodicity. With regards to tissue function, the immune system has a profound pro-inflammatory transcriptomic profile during European winter, with increased levels of soluble IL-6 receptor and C-reactive protein, risk biomarkers for cardiovascular, psychiatric and autoimmune diseases that have peak incidences in winter. Circannual rhythms thus require further exploration as contributors to various aspects of human physiology and disease.

 Download the PDF from VitaminDWiki

Observations by VitaminDWiki

  1. Apparently no studies (yet) on how genes in other portions of the body change with seasons.
  2. Apparently no studies of how many of the 1000+ genes associated with vitamin D might change with season
    Other than Vitamin D Receptor - in the graph above
  3. It has been assumed that all of the change of vitamin D with season is due to change of UVB
    Is the VDR change (in chart aboe) due to UVB change or length of day?
  4. 23andME and similar gene testing services apparently do not consider season of the DNA sample (but perhaps should)

See also VitaminDWiki

Attached files

ID Name Comment Uploaded Size Downloads
5455 VDR vs season.jpg admin 12 May, 2015 50.08 Kb 1206
5454 Seasonal changes of genes in the blood.pdf admin 12 May, 2015 4.16 Mb 1350