A meta-analysis of pre-pregnancy maternal body mass index and placental DNA methylation identifies 27 CpG sites with implications for mother-child health
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Fernández Jiménez, Nora; Martorell Marugán, Jordi; Carmona Sáez, Pedro; Fernández Cabrera, Mariana Fátima; Gómez Martín, Antonio; González Alzaga, Beatriz; Lacasaña, MarinaEditorial
Nature
Date
2022-11-30Referencia bibliográfica
Fernandez-Jimenez, N... [et al.]. A meta-analysis of pre-pregnancy maternal body mass index and placental DNA methylation identifies 27 CpG sites with implications for mother-child health. Commun Biol 5, 1313 (2022). [https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-04267-y]
Sponsorship
French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers (INSU); Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); European Commission; Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain (MICINN); Spanish Government FJC2018-036729; European Development Fund; European Social Fund (ESF)Abstract
Higher maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (ppBMI) is associated with increased
neonatal morbidity, as well as with pregnancy complications and metabolic outcomes in
offspring later in life. The placenta is a key organ in fetal development and has been proposed
to act as a mediator between the mother and different health outcomes in children. The
overall aim of the present work is to investigate the association of ppBMI with epigenomewide
placental DNA methylation (DNAm) in 10 studies from the PACE consortium,
amounting to 2631 mother-child pairs. We identify 27 CpG sites at which we observe placental
DNAm variations of up to 2.0% per 10 ppBMI-unit. The CpGs that are differentially
methylated in placenta do not overlap with CpGs identified in previous studies in cord blood
DNAm related to ppBMI. Many of the identified CpGs are located in open sea regions, are
often close to obesity-related genes such as GPX1 and LGR4 and altogether, are enriched in
cancer and oxidative stress pathways. Our findings suggest that placental DNAm could be
one of the mechanisms by which maternal obesity is associated with metabolic health outcomes
in newborns and children, although further studies will be needed in order to corroborate
these findings.