Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1186/s13148-025-01858-4
Licence creative commons licence
Title (Primary) Maternal asthma and newborn DNA methylation
Author Tingskov Pedersen, C.-E.; Hoang, T.T.; Jin, J.; Starnawska, A.; Granell, R.; Elliott, H.R.; Huels, A.; Zar, H.J.; Stein, D.J.; Zhang, Y.; den Dekker, H.T.; Duijts, L.; Felix, J.F.; Sangüesa, J.; Bustamante, M.; Casas, M.; Vrijheid, M.; Kadalayil, L.; Rezwan, F.I.; Arshad, H.; Holloway, J.W.; Röder, S. ORCID logo ; Zenclussen, A.C.; Herberth, G. ORCID logo ; Heine Staunstrup, N.; Thisted Horsdal, H.; Mill, J.; Hannon, E.; iPSYCH-MINERvA Group, et al.
Source Titel Clinical Epigenetics
Year 2025
Department IMMU
Volume 17
Page From art. 79
Language englisch
Topic T9 Healthy Planet
Data and Software links https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13219057
Supplements https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1186%2Fs13148-025-01858-4/MediaObjects/13148_2025_1858_MOESM1_ESM.docx
Abstract Background
Prenatal exposure to maternal asthma may influence DNA methylation patterns in offspring, potentially affecting their susceptibility to later diseases including asthma.
Objective
To investigate the relationship between parental asthma and newborn blood DNA methylation.
Methods
Epigenome-wide association analyses were conducted in 13 cohorts on 7433 newborns with blood methylation data from the Illumina450K or EPIC array. We used fixed effects meta-analyses to identify differentially methylated CpGs (DMCs) and comb-p to identify differentially methylated regions (DMRs) associated with maternal asthma during pregnancy and maternal asthma ever. Paternal asthma was analyzed for comparison. Models were adjusted for covariates and cell-type composition. We examined whether implicated sites related to gene expression analyses in publicly available data for childhood blood and adult lung.
Results
We identified 27 CpGs associated with maternal asthma during pregnancy at False Discovery Rate < 0.05 but none for maternal asthma ever. Two distinct CpGs were associated with paternal asthma. We observed 5 DMRs associated with maternal asthma during pregnancy 3 associated with maternal asthma ever and 13 DMRs associated with paternal asthma. Gene expression analysis using data in blood from 832 children and lung from 424 adults showed associations between identified DMCs using maternal asthma and expression of several genes, including HLA genes and HOXA5, previously implicated in asthma or lung function.
Conclusion
Parental asthma, especially maternal asthma during pregnancy, may be associated with alterations in newborn DNA methylation. These findings might shed light on underlying mechanisms for asthma susceptibility.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=30839
Tingskov Pedersen, C.-E., Hoang, T.T., Jin, J., Starnawska, A., Granell, R., Elliott, H.R., Huels, A., Zar, H.J., Stein, D.J., Zhang, Y., den Dekker, H.T., Duijts, L., Felix, J.F., Sangüesa, J., Bustamante, M., Casas, M., Vrijheid, M., Kadalayil, L., Rezwan, F.I., Arshad, H., Holloway, J.W., Röder, S., Zenclussen, A.C., Herberth, G., Heine Staunstrup, N., Thisted Horsdal, H., Mill, J., Hannon, E., iPSYCH-MINERvA Group, et al. (2025):
Maternal asthma and newborn DNA methylation
Clin. Epigenetics 17 , art. 79 10.1186/s13148-025-01858-4