科研之友
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摘要
<jats:p>Maternal stress has been linked to low birth weight in newborns. One potential pathway involves epigenetic changes at candidate genes that may mediate the effects of prenatal maternal stress on birth weight. This relationship has been documented in stress-related genes, such as <jats:italic>NR3C1</jats:italic>. There is less literature exploring the effect of stress on growth-related genes. <jats:italic>IGF1</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>IGF2</jats:italic> have been implicated in fetal growth and development, though via different mechanisms as <jats:italic>IGF2</jats:italic> is under imprinting control. In this study, we tested for associations between prenatal stress, methylation of <jats:italic>IGF1</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>IGF2</jats:italic>, and birth weight. A total of 24 mother–newborn dyads in the Democratic Republic of Congo were enrolled. Ethnographic interviews were conducted with mothers at delivery to gather culturally relevant war-related and chronic stressors. DNA methylation data were generated from maternal venous, cord blood and placental tissue samples. Multivariate regressions were used to test for associations between stress measures, DNA methylation and birth weight in each of the three tissue types. We found an association between <jats:italic>IGF2</jats:italic> methylation in maternal blood and birth weight. Previous literature on the relationship between <jats:italic>IGF2</jats:italic> methylation and birth weight has focused on methylation at known differentially methylated regions in cord blood or placental samples. Our findings indicate there may be links between the maternal epigenome and low birth weight that rely on mechanisms outside known imprinting pathways. It thus may be important to consider the effect of maternal exposures and epigenetic profiles on birth weight even in the setting of maternally imprinted genes such as <jats:italic>IGF2</jats:italic>.</jats:p>
- 出版日期2018-4
