When looking at the link between gene expression and epigenetic state, we found that there is a strong correlation between the two when these epialleles are in 5’UTRs and promoters. This is not the case for all VMPs. 8/n

Finally, we found approximately 800 sites that show very strong variability in DNA methylation (which we call epialleles) with a site being lowly methylated in approximately half of the population and highly methylated in the other half. 7/n

Some of these genetic variants are far from the site displaying epigenetic variation, but we found that they still occupy the same TAD (regions of the DNA that interacts with itself in 3D space more than expected by chance) 6/n

Approximately half of these sites that display epigenetic interindividual variation are under genetic control. In other words, at least half of epigenetic differences we see in individuals comes from genetic differences. 5/n

Next, we found that the VMPs are enriched in binding motifs for specific TFs that have been shown to display DNA methylation sensitive binding. This is true for both VMPs in promoters and enhancers. 4/n

35K CpGs display high interindividual variability in DNAm (VMPs). VMPs are partially methylated & found in regulatory regions (enhancers & intergenic). Majority of VMPs don't include CpGs associated with age, sex or smoking, features that have the largest epigenetic signal) 3/n

We looked at DNA methylation data from whole blood (EPIC array ~850K CpGs) in approximately 3.5K individuals from Understanding Society, the largest longitudinal and latitudinal British Household study which is representative for British population. 2/n