First name
Allan
Middle name
C
Last name
Just

Title

Prenatal Stress, Methylation in Inflammation-Related Genes, and Adiposity Measures in Early Childhood: the Programming Research in Obesity, Growth Environment and Social Stress Cohort Study.

Year of Publication

2018

Number of Pages

34-41

Date Published

2018 01

ISSN Number

1534-7796

Abstract

<p><strong>OBJECTIVE: </strong>Maternal stress during pregnancy may influence childhood growth and adiposity, possibly through immune/inflammatory programming. We investigated whether exposure to prenatal stress and methylation in inflammation-related genes were associated with childhood adiposity in 424 mother-child pairs in Mexico City, Mexico.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS: </strong>A stress index was created based on four prenatally administered stress-related scales (Exposure to Violence, Crisis in Family Systems, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale). We measured weight, height, body fat mass (BFM), percentage body fat (PBF), and waist circumference in early childhood (age range, 4-6 years). Body mass index (BMI) z scores were calculated according to World Health Organization standards. DNA methylation in gene promoters of tumor necrosis factor α, interleukin 8, and interleukin 6 (IL6) in umbilical cord blood were determined by pyrosequencing.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>An interquartile range increase in stress index (27.3) was associated with decreases of 0.14 unit in BMI z score (95% confidence interval [CI] = -0.28 to -0.005), 5.6% in BFM (95% CI = -9.7 to -1.4), 3.5% in PBF (95% CI = -6.3 to -0.5), and 1.2% in waist circumference (95% CI = -2.4 to -0.04) in multivariable-adjusted models. An interquartile range increase in IL6 methylation (3.9%) was associated with increases of 0.23 unit in BMI z score (95% CI = 0.06-0.40), 8.1% (95% CI = 2.3-14.3) in BFM, 5.5% (95% CI = 1.7-9.5) in PBF, and 1.7% (95% CI = 0.2-3.3) in waist circumference.</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>Prenatal stress was associated with decreased childhood adiposity, whereas cord blood IL6 methylation was associated with increased childhood adiposity in Mexican children.</p>

DOI

10.1097/PSY.0000000000000517

Alternate Title

Psychosom Med

PMID

28787364

Title

Prenatal salivary sex hormone levels and birth-weight-for-gestational age.

Year of Publication

2019

Date Published

2019 May 20

ISSN Number

1476-5543

Abstract

<p><strong>OBJECTIVE: </strong>To determine whether prenatal sex hormones from maternal saliva are associated with birth-weight-for-gestational age.</p>

<p><strong>STUDY DESIGN: </strong>We measured salivary progesterone, testosterone, estradiol, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and cortisone in 504 pregnant women in a Mexico City cohort. We performed linear and modified Poisson regression to examine associations of log-transformed hormones with birth-weight-for-gestational age z-scores and the risk of small-for-gestational age (SGA) and large-for-gestational age (LGA) adjusting for maternal age, sex, BMI, parity, smoking, education, and socioeconomic status.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>In total, 15% of infants were SGA and 2% were LGA. Each interquartile range increment in testosterone/estradiol ratio was associated with a 0.12 decrement in birth-weight-for-gestational age z-score (95% CI: -0.27 to -0.02) and a 50% higher risk of SGA versus appropriate-for-gestational age (AGA) (95% CI: 1.13-1.99).</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSION: </strong>Higher salivary testosterone/estradiol ratios may affect fetal growth, and identifying the predictors of hormone levels may be important to optimizing fetal growth.</p>

DOI

10.1038/s41372-019-0385-y

Alternate Title

J Perinatol

PMID

31110244

Title

Long noncoding RNA expression in the cervix mid-pregnancy is associated with the length of gestation at delivery.

Year of Publication

2018

Number of Pages

742-750

Date Published

2018

ISSN Number

1559-2308

Abstract

<p>Infants born preterm are at increased risk of multiple morbidities and mortality. Why some women deliver preterm remains poorly understood. Prior studies have shown that cervical microRNA expression and DNA methylation are associated with the length of gestation. However, no study has examined the role of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the cervix during pregnancy. To determine whether expression of lncRNAs is associated with length of gestation at delivery, we analyzed RNA from cervical swabs obtained from 78 women during pregnancy (mean 15.5, SD 5.0, weeks of gestation) who were participating in the Spontaneous Prematurity and Epigenetics of the Cervix (SPEC) Study in Boston, MA, USA. We used a PCR-based platform and found that 9 lncRNAs were expressed in at least 50% of the participants. Of these, a doubling of the expression of TUG1, TINCR, and FALEC was associated with shorter lengths of gestation at delivery [2.8 (95% CI: 0.31, 5.2); 3.3 (0.22, 6.3); and 4.5 (7.3, 1.6) days shorter respectively]. Of the lncRNAs analyzed, none was statistically associated with preterm birth, but expression of FALEC was 2.6-fold higher in women who delivered preterm vs. term (P&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.051). These findings demonstrate that lncRNAs can be measured in cervical samples obtained during pregnancy and are associated with subsequent length of gestation at delivery. Further, this study supports future work to replicate these findings in other cohorts and perform mechanistic studies to determine the role of lncRNAs in the cervix during pregnancy.</p>

DOI

10.1080/15592294.2018.1503490

Alternate Title

Epigenetics

PMID

30045669

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