Getting your DNA sequenced is now an everyday reality, but a new frontier has opened up in personal genomics. Two companies have started selling kits that sequence your epigenome. They claim it can deliver much more detailed and useful health advice than is possible from a regular gene sequence.
Epigenetics refers to biochemical modifications to DNA that occur during a person’s lifetime in response to lifestyle and environment. These alter the expression of genes and can have a profound effect on health. Detrimental effects can sometimes be reversed, and beneficial ones encouraged, by lifestyle changes. The two companies say they will help their customers to shift their epigenomes into a healthier state.
, based in Norwich, UK, has been selling its services since April last year. of Ipswich, UK, is launching its kit this week.
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The companies’ sales pitches are similar. Both say they will sequence your epigenome, use it to assess various measures of health, and offer advice on how to improve it. This advice is what sets epigenetic testing from regular personal genomics, says Tom Stubbs, CEO and founder of Chronomics.
Self improvement
“With genetics, people can’t do anything about the information they’re given. With epigenetics, that’s not the case,” he says. “If you found out you had a bad score on something there are steps you could take to improve it. It’s much more empowering.”
There are many forms of epigenetic modification but the best understood is methylation, where a methyl group is chemically attached to the DNA base cytosine. Most methylations switch genes off. Both companies’ tests look at methylation status across the entire genome. Stubbs says Chronomics’ test uses state-of-the-art sequencing to analyse 5 million bases where methylation can occur – just a small fraction of the genome, but the most important parts when it comes to epigenetics.
Two żěè¶ĚĘÓƵ journalists, myself and Alison George, have signed up with both companies. We sent saliva samples to the labs last week and are expecting to receive our baseline results soon.
Both companies say they will tell us our biological age, a scientifically well-validated measure of the amount of cellular damage incurred over the years. This is considered a better indicator of wear and tear than chronological age and unlike chronological age, it can go down as well as up as a result of lifestyle changes.
Chronomics will also tell us how our metabolisms are functioning and how much tobacco smoke we have been exposed to in our lifetimes. After a year, it will sequence our epigenomes again to measure any changes, good and bad.
Muhdo, meanwhile, promises to tell us our levels of stress, inflammation and hypertension, plus the impact of pollution on our bodies. It will resequence us every 3 months.
Both companies are giving żěè¶ĚĘÓƵ their services for free. Chronomics usually charges ÂŁ699 a year. Muhdo charges ÂŁ59.99 upfront then ÂŁ19.99 a month.
Muin Khoury, who oversees public health genomics for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is a long-time critic of consumer genomics, warns that epigenetics is not yet ready for consumers. “The simple fact is that [consumer] epigenetics tests are really not ready for prime time,” he says.
