@article {409, title = {Meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies in neonates reveals widespread differential DNA methylation associated with birthweight}, journal = {Nature Communications}, volume = {10}, year = {2019}, pages = {1893}, abstract = {

Birthweight is associated with health outcomes across the life course, DNA methylation may be an underlying mechanism. In this meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies of 8,825 neonates from 24 birth cohorts in the Pregnancy And Childhood Epigenetics Consortium, we find that DNA methylation in neonatal blood is associated with birthweight at 914 sites, with a difference in birthweight ranging from \−183 to 178 grams per 10\% increase in methylation (PBonferroni\ \<\ 1.06\ x\ 10\−7). In additional analyses in 7,278 participants, \<1.3\% of birthweight-associated differential methylation is also observed in childhood and adolescence, but not adulthood.\ Birthweight-related CpGs overlap with some Bonferroni-significant CpGs that were previously reported to be related to maternal smoking (55/914, p\ = 6.12\ x\ 10\−74) and BMI in pregnancy (3/914, p = 1.13x10\−3), but not with those related to folate levels in pregnancy. Whether the associations that we observe are causal or explained by confounding or fetal growth influencing DNA methylation (i.e. reverse causality) requires further research.

}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-019-09671-3}, author = {K{\"u}pers, Leanne K and Monnereau, Claire and Sharp, Gemma C and Yousefi, Paul and Salas, Lucas A and Ghantous, Akram and Page, Christian M and Reese, Sarah E and Wilcox, Allen J and Czamara, Darina and Starling, Anne P and Novoloaca, Alexei and Lent, Samantha and Roy, Ritu and Hoyo, Cathrine and Breton, Carrie V and Allard, Catherine and Just, Allan C and Bakulski, Kelly M and Holloway, John W and Everson, Todd M and Xu, Cheng-Jian and Huang, Rae-Chi and van der Plaat, Diana A and Wielscher, Matthias and Merid, Simon Kebede and Ullemar, Vilhelmina and Rezwan, Faisal I and Lahti, Jari and van Dongen, Jenny and Langie, Sabine A S and Richardson, Tom G and Magnus, Maria C and Nohr, Ellen A and Xu, Zongli and Duijts, Liesbeth and Zhao, Shanshan and Zhang, Weiming and Plusquin, Michelle and DeMeo, Dawn L and Solomon, Olivia and Heimovaara, Joosje H and Jima, Dereje D and Gao, Lu and Bustamante, Mariona and Perron, Patrice and Wright, Robert O and Hertz-Picciotto, Irva and Zhang, Hongmei and Karagas, Margaret R and Gehring, Ulrike and Marsit, Carmen J and Beilin, Lawrence J and Vonk, Judith M and Jarvelin, Marjo-Riitta and Bergstr{\"o}m, Anna and {\"O}rtqvist, Anne K and Ewart, Susan and Villa, Pia M and Moore, Sophie E and Willemsen, Gonneke and Standaert, Arnout R L and H\aaberg, Siri E and S{\o}rensen, Thorkild I A and Taylor, Jack A and R{\"a}ikk{\"o}nen, Katri and Yang, Ivana V and Kechris, Katerina and Nawrot, Tim S and Silver, Matt J and Gong, Yun Yun and Richiardi, Lorenzo and Kogevinas, Manolis and Litonjua, Augusto A and Eskenazi, Brenda and Huen, Karen and Mbarek, Hamdi and Maguire, Rachel L and Dwyer, Terence and Vrijheid, Martine and Bouchard, Luigi and Baccarelli, Andrea A and Croen, Lisa A and Karmaus, Wilfried and Anderson, Denise and de Vries, Maaike and Sebert, Sylvain and Kere, Juha and Karlsson, Robert and Arshad, Syed Hasan and H{\"a}m{\"a}l{\"a}inen, Esa and Routledge, Michael N and Boomsma, Dorret I and Feinberg, Andrew P and Newschaffer, Craig J and Govarts, Eva and Moisse, Matthieu and Fallin, M Daniele and Mel{\'e}n, Erik and Prentice, Andrew M and Kajantie, Eero and Almqvist, Catarina and Oken, Emily and Dabelea, Dana and Boezen, H Marike and Melton, Phillip E and Wright, Rosalind J and Koppelman, Gerard H and Trevisi, Letizia and Hivert, Marie-France and Sunyer, Jordi and Munthe-Kaas, Monica C and Murphy, Susan K and Corpeleijn, Eva and Wiemels, Joseph and Holland, Nina and Herceg, Zdenko and Binder, Elisabeth B and Davey Smith, George and Jaddoe, Vincent W V and Lie, Rolv T and Nystad, Wenche and London, Stephanie J and Lawlor, Debbie A and Relton, Caroline L and Snieder, Harold and Felix, Janine F} }