Maternal preconception body mass index and offspring cord blood DNA methylation: exploration of early life origins of disease.
Maternal obesity is associated with a variety of common diseases in the offspring. One possible underlying mechanism could be maternal obesity induced alterations in DNA methylation. However, this hypothesis is yet to be tested. We performed epigenomic mapping of cord blood among 308 Black mother-infant pairs delivered at term at the Boston Medical Center using the Illumina HumanMethylation27 BeadChip. Linear regression and pathway analyses were conducted to evaluate the associations between DNA methylation levels and prepregnancy maternal BMI (<25, 25-30, ≥30 kg/m(2) ). The methylation levels of 20 CpG sites were associated with maternal BMI at a significance level of P-value <10(-4) in the overall sample, and boys and girls, separately. One CpG site remained statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons (FDR corrected P-value = 0.04) and was annotated to a potential cancer gene, ZCCHC10. Some of the other CpG site annotated genes appear to be critical to the development of cancers and cardiovascular diseases (i.e., WNT16, C18orf8, ANGPTL2, SAPCD2, ADCY3, PRR16, ERBB2, DOK2, PLAC1). Significant findings from pathway analysis, such as infectious and inflammatory and lipid metabolism pathways, lends support for the potential impact of maternal BMI on the above stated disorders. This study demonstrates that prepregnancy maternal BMI might lead to alterations in offspring DNA methylation in genes relevant to the development of a range of complex chronic diseases, providing evidence of trans-generational influence on disease susceptibility via epigenetic mechanism.
Mary Ann and J. Milburn Smith Child Health Research Program, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois; Department of Preventive Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois.
Xin
X
Liu
Qi
Q
Chen
Hui-Ju
HJ
Tsai
Guoying
G
Wang
Xiumei
X
Hong
Ying
Y
Zhou
Chunling
C
Zhang
Chunyu
C
Liu
Rong
R
Liu
Hongjian
H
Wang
Shanchun
S
Zhang
Yunxian
Y
Yu
Karen K
KK
Mestan
Colleen
C
Pearson
Peters
P
Otlans
Barry
B
Zuckerman
Xiaobin
X
Wang
D000328:Adult; D015992:Body Mass Index; D018899:CpG Islands; D019175:DNA Methylation; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D005260:Female; D005312:Fetal Blood / Q000378:metabolism*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008055:Lipids / Q000737:chemistry; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics; D009765:Obesity / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications; D011786:Quality Control; D012044:Regression Analysis; D055815:Young Adult
D008055:Lipids
DNA methylation; cord blood; early life origins of disease; maternal BMI