Hi All,
İ learned a lot from the Discussion on pregnancy and especially Dear Patricia's
precious sharing.
Thank you all...
The study below has just been published.
PNMS ends in methilation of the baby DNA that may cause diabetes, asthma,
autism, immunological problems...( there is an additional study's news claiming
this part in next e-mail)
First evidence,
Enjoy!!!
Bizden, istanbul
Read the open-access, full-text article here:
http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107653 ;
===================================================
DNA Methylation Signatures Triggered by Prenatal Maternal Stress Exposure to
a Natural Disaster: Project Ice Storm
Abstract: Background
Prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) predicts a wide variety of behavioral and
physical outcomes in the offspring. Although epigenetic processes may be
responsible for PNMS effects, human research is hampered by the lack of
experimental methods that parallel controlled animal studies. Disasters,
however, provide natural experiments that can provide models of prenatal
stress.
Methods
Five months after the 1998 Quebec ice storm we recruited women who had been
pregnant during the disaster and assessed their degrees of objective hardship
and subjective distress. Thirteen years later, we investigated DNA
methylation profiling in T cells obtained from 36 of the children, and
compared selected results with those from saliva samples obtained from the
same children at age 8.
Results
Prenatal maternal objective hardship was correlated with DNA methylation
levels in 1675 CGs affiliated with 957 genes predominantly related to immune
function; maternal subjective distress was uncorrelated. DNA methylation
changes in SCG5 and LTA, both highly correlated with maternal objective
stress, were comparable in T cells, peripheral blood mononuclear cells
(PBMCs) and saliva cells.
Conclusions
These data provide first evidence in humans supporting the conclusion that
PNMS results in a lasting, broad, and functionally organized DNA methylation
signature in several tissues in offspring. By using a natural disaster model,
we can infer that the epigenetic effects found in Project Ice Storm are due
to objective levels of hardship experienced by the pregnant woman rather than
to her level of sustained distress.
