Differential methylation in the discovery cohort of ComR
We identified 129 individual CpG sites and 233 regions that were significantly associated with ComR in whole blood DNA (Figure 2b, Table 3, Table S8-S9). Q-Q plot is shown in Figure S2b and λ was 1.178. The eQTM analysis identified 99 CpG-gene pairs for 45 out of the 129 CpG sites (FDR<0.05, Table S2). These eQTM genes were enriched in eight pathways (P <0.01, Table S3), and the top pathways were Activation of SMO (Smoothen), Platelet Adhesion to exposed collagen, and Cilium Assembly.
In nasal brushes, we identified 21 CpG sites and 119 DMRs that were associated with ComR (Table S10-S11). Q-Q plot is shown in Figure S3b and λ was 1.318. Eight of the ComR-associated CpG sites identified from whole blood also showed nominal significance in nasal brushes with the same direction of effect (Table S12). Seven ComR-associated CpG sites were correlated to expression level of nine genes in cis (nominal significant P<0.05) in nasal brushes, and four pairs also showed nominal significant and in the same direction in PIAMA dataset (Table S7).