Project description:Genome wide DNA methylation profiling of 152 umbilical cord blood samples from CCCEH birth cohort. The Illumina Infinium 450k Human DNA methylation Beadchip was used to obtain DNA methylation profiles across approximately 450,000 CpGs in cord blood samples
Project description:Allergy is one of the most common diseases among young children yet all factors that affect development of allergy remain unclear. In a small cohort of 65 children living in the same rural area of south-west Sweden, we have previously found that maternal factors, including prenatal diet, affect childhood allergy risk, suggesting that in utero conditions may be important for allergy development. Here, we studied if metabolites in the umbilical cord blood of newborns may be related to development of childhood allergy, accounting for key perinatal factors such as mode of delivery, birth order and sex. Umbilical cord blood plasma samples from 44 of the participants were analysed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry metabolomics; allergy was diagnosed by specialised paediatricians at ages 18 months, 36 months and 8 years and included eczema, asthma, food allergy and allergic rhinoconjunctivitis. Nineteen cord blood metabolites were related to future allergy diagnosis though was no clear pattern of up- or downregulation of metabolic pathways. In contrast, perinatal factors birth order, sex and mode of delivery affected several energy and biosynthetic pathways, including glutamate and aspartic acid - histidine metabolism (p=0.004) and the tricarboxylic acid cycle (p=0.006) for birth order; branched chain amino acid metabolism (p=0.0009) and vitamin B6 metabolism (p=0.01) for sex; and glyoxylate and dicarboxylic acid metabolism (p=0.005) for mode of delivery. In conclusion, the cord blood metabolome includes individual metabolites that reflect lifestyle, microbial and other factors that may also be associated with future allergy diagnosis, and also reflects temporally close events/factors. Larger studies are required to confirm these associations, and perinatal factors such as birth order or siblings must be considered in future cord-blood metabolome studies.
Project description:Genome wide DNA methylation profiling of umbilical cord blood DNA samples. The Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC array was used to obtain DNA methylation profiles across approximately 850,000 CpGs. Samples included 470 cord blood samples from infants born to women in the Southampton Women's Survery (SWS) cohort, to examine the association between DNA methylation in the infant and aspects of health and disease in early and life and childhood.
