Is Early Life DNA Methylation Related to Infant Development?

Published February 2019 | Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience

An early-stage epigenetic study of mother-child pairs enrolled in the Every Child Succeeds home visiting program demonstrated a potentially important relationship between infant DNA methylation (DNAm) at a specific gene and subsequent development of social-emotional skills.

Based on maternal psychological screens and buccal epithelial swabs of the infants at one month post-partum, followed by child developmental check-ups at 6 and 18 months, researchers found that a higher DNAm promoter score at the NR3C1 glucocorticoid-receptor gene was “a significant predictor” of more positive infant social-emotional functioning at six months. A similar trend at 18 months was true for a smaller sample of infants.

The study, led by Ted Folger, PhD, MS, and senior author Katherine Bowers, PhD, MPH, continues research into the negative effects of poverty in the developing brain. Other studies have linked maternal prenatal adversity with the same DNA mechanism.

“We were really surprised at the direction of our effect estimate, which showed a positive relationship between neonatal NR3C1 DNA methylation and later social-emotional health,” Folger says. “Our findings may reflect a compensatory response to adversity among mothers and infants who receive home visiting.”

These early-stage findings may be limited by variations in evaluation timing and by using cheek-swab samples for DNA assessments. The team plans a longer longitudinal study that will include multiple measurements of adversity, DNA methylation, and child development and behavior.

“Planned research will follow more mother-child dyads for a longer time and will examine sites across the genome,” Folger says. “It is possible that the dynamic nature of DNA methylation during early development must be measured to fully appreciate risk phenotypes. Our continued research will help us elucidate these patterns and complex relationships.”