Patrick McGowan

Patrick O. McGowan, PhD, is an epigenetics researcher and Assistant Professor at the Centre for Environmental Epigenetics and Development at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Notable Studies
Dr. Patrick McGowan's epigenetics work has been supported by The Solve ME/CFS Initiative. Epigenetics is the research field that studies changes in the regulation of genes that are influenced by non-genetic or external factors, such as chemical imbalance, nutrition and the environment. The epigenome of approximately 100 ME/CFS patients and 100 healthy controls are being analyzed by McGowan's laboratory. Early results indicate that a number of epigenetic markers are associated with the response to glucocorticoids and certain ME/CFS symptoms. The epigenetic marks also appear to be distinct in immune cells from ME/CFS patients that show a robust response to the glucocorticoids. The results are preliminary, but suggest epigenetic markers may one day be helpful in classifying subtypes of the disease, and in identifying environmental and other non-genetic factors in ME/CFS symptoms.

Published Research
2014, DNA Methylation Modifications Associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Wilfred C. de Vega, Suzanne D. Vernon, Patrick O. McGowan) The first study to explore genome-wide epigenetic changes associated with ME/CFS. Findings included an increased abundance of differentially methylated genes related to the immune response, cellular metabolism, and kinase activity. Genes associated with immune cell regulation, the largest coordinated enrichment of differentially methylated pathways, showed hypomethylation within promoters and other gene regulatory elements in ME/CFS. These data are consistent with evidence of multisystem dysregulation in ME/CFS and implicate the involvement of DNA modifications in ME/CFS pathology.