AUTHOR=Noronha Natália Yumi , Noma Isabella Harumi Yonehara , Fernandes Ferreira Rafael , Rodrigues Guilherme da Silva , Martins Luzania dos Santos , Watanabe Lígia Moriguchi , Pinhel Marcela Augusta de Souza , Mello Schineider Isabelle , Diani Luísa Maria , Carlos Daniela , Nonino Carla Barbosa TITLE=Association between the relative abundance of phyla actinobacteria, vitamin C consumption, and DNA methylation of genes linked to immune response pathways JOURNAL=Frontiers in Nutrition VOLUME=11 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2024.1373499 DOI=10.3389/fnut.2024.1373499 ISSN=2296-861X ABSTRACT=Introduction

There is an emerging body of evidence that vitamin C consumption can modulate microbiota abundance and can also impact DNA methylation in the host, and this could be a link between diet, microbiota, and immune response. The objective of this study was to evaluate common CpG sites associated with both vitamin C and microbiota phyla abundance.

Methods

Six healthy women participated in this cohort study. They were divided into two groups, according to the amount of vitamin C they ingested. Ingestion was evaluated using the 24-h recall method. The Illumina 450 k BeadChip was used to evaluate DNA methylation. Singular value decomposition analyses were used to evaluate the principal components of this dataset. Associations were evaluated using the differentially methylated position function from the Champ package for R Studio.

Results and discussion

The group with higher vitamin C (HVC) ingestion also had a higher relative abundance of Actinobacteria. There was a positive correlation between those variables (r = 0.84, p = 0.01). The HVC group also had higher granulocytes, and regarding DNA methylation, there were 207 CpG sites commonly related to vitamin C ingestion and the relative abundance of Actinobacteria. From these sites, there were 13 sites hypomethylated and 103 hypermethylated. The hypomethylated targets involved the respective processes: immune function, glucose homeostasis, and general cellular metabolism. The hypermethylated sites were also enriched in immune function-related processes, and interestingly, more immune responses against pathogens were detected. These findings contribute to understanding the interaction between nutrients, microbiota, DNA methylation, and the immune response.