Fig. 3

Epigenetically supersimilar (ESS) probes are enriched for systemic interindividual variation (SIV). a Analytical strategy applied to data of Lokk et al. [20] on abdominal aorta, gall bladder, and sciatic nerve from each of four individuals. Interindividual and tissue-specific variation were quantified as the range of the individuals’ mean beta values (μ₁, μ₂, μ₃, μ₄) and the tissues’ mean beta values (μ_aa, μ_gb, μ_sn), respectively. b Tissue-specific vs. interindividual variation for 344,151 probes. Histograms (top and side) indicate the density distribution. Green lines illustrate cutoffs used to identify 1042 SIV probes (shaded region, interindividual > 0.2 and tissue-specific < 1/3 of interindividual variation). c Examples of bisulfite pyrosequencing data confirming systemic interindividual variation in selected loci: PF4 and LDHC. d The 1580 probes with evidence of ESS are 6.3-fold enriched for SIV (P < 10^–10, chi-squared test)