Individual longitudinal changes in DNA-methylome identify signatures of early-life adversity and correlate with later outcome.

ABSTRACT: Adverse early-life experiences (ELA) affect a majority of the world's children. Whereas the enduring impact of ELA on cognitive and emotional health is established, there are no tools to predict vulnerability to ELA consequences in an individual child. Epigenetic markers including peripheral-cell DNA-methylation profiles may encode ELA and provide predictive outcome markers, yet the interindividual variance of the human genome and rapid changes in DNA methylation in childhood pose significant challenges. Hoping to mitigate these challenges we examined the relation of several ELA dimensions to DNA methylation changes and outcome using a within-subject longitudinal design and a high methylation-change threshold. DNA methylation was analyzed in buccal swab/saliva samples collected twice (neon

SUBMITTER: Short AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11219970 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature