The health of the mother influences the child's DNA - The Sciences

Into The body mass index of the mother before pregnancy influences the degree of expression of the genes of the new born until the third year of age: this is the conclusion of a new study based on the analysis of blood samples from hundreds of Children who provides important information for understanding the complex interaction between the state of health of the mother and that of the child, of which only recently has begun to understand the mechanisms (red)

The health of the mother and fetus during pregnancy have a strong bond with the baby’s health after birth, according often indirect mechanisms that medical research has only recently begun to clarify. The latest study in order of time in this field, published in the online journal “PLoS ONE” and signed by Julie Herbstman, a professor of environmental sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University, and colleagues examined the changes that occur in the DNA of the fetus during pregnancy. From the analysis it was found that the degree of methylation, a biochemical process that regulates the expression of genes, remains even after birth, as a kind of fingerprint which could influence the health of the baby.

In recent years, body took the idea that the correct functioning of the DNA by the action also depends epigenome, ie the set of processes that lead to adjustment activate or silence specific genes in response to the stimuli coming from the environment. The methylation is the main epigenetic mechanism, and consists in the binding of a chemical group methyl in specific sites of the DNA sequence, whose experimental abutment is relatively easy with the current techniques of genetic analysis.

Despite the progress made in recent years by research in the field of genomics, however, it is still unclear whether and how the evolving DNA methylation. “The dogma universally accepted so far is that the methylation process begins in the early stages of the development of the individual and that its effects are felt from that moment on,” says Herbstman. “But in the case of humans, there are no data to support this idea: we have tried to fill this gap.”

The authors

considered 279 infants included in a draft study on the health of mothers and children in the course at Columbia University, before collecting blood samples from the umbilical cord and then with a normal withdrawal, to a comprehensive analysis of DNA methylation.

High values ??of body mass index are related to low levels of DNA methylation of newborns, up to three years. The impact on the health of the child of this “maternal impression” has yet to be clarified (© Sasha Gulish / Corbis) have thus observed that methylation of cord blood was significantly correlated with methylation levels in children of three years. This supports the hypothesis that changes in DNA methylation that occur in the early stages of development have a long lasting impact.

The researchers then examined a specific item to see how it affected the DNA methylation in children: body mass index (BMI) of the mother before pregnancy, a factor that, in the light of the alarm on obesity w orldwide, recently acquired considerable importance.

According to the data collected, high values ??of this parameter are associated with statistically significantly lower levels of methylation, with an effect that lasts until the third year of the child. However, the consequences of this effect are far from being known, because it is not yet clear what would be the impact on health of slight epigenetic alterations. Some studies have linked low levels of methylation of the genome instability, a condition that can favor the rupture of the DNA molecule and subsequent rearrangements, with exchanges of nucleotide sequences and loss of genetic information, which are the basis of many diseases, in particular those tumor.