Associations between childhood family emotional health, fronto-limbic grey matter volume, and saliva 5mC in young adulthood

Clinical Epigenetics

Don Armstrong¹  Karestan C. Koenen²  Ahmad R. Hariri³  Annchen R. Knodt³  J. R. Pfeiffer⁴  Angela C. Bustamante⁵  Monica Uddin⁶  Grace S. Kim⁷ 

[1] Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, Urbana, IL, USA;Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA;Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA;Laboratory of NeuroGenetics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA;Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA;Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, Urbana, IL, USA;Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, USA;Genomics Program, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, 3720 Spectrum Blvd., Suite 304, Tampa, FL, USA;Medical Scholars Program, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Urbana, IL, USA;

关键词: Peripheral epigenetics;    Neuroimaging;    Family emotional health;    Adverse social environment;    Biological embedding;    Fronto-limbic;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13148-021-01056-y

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundPoor family emotional health (FEH) during childhood is prevalent and impactful, and likely confers similar neurodevelopmental risks as other adverse social environments. Pointed FEH study efforts are underdeveloped, and the mechanisms by which poor FEH are biologically embedded are unclear. The current exploratory study examined whether variability in 5-methyl-cytosine (5mC) and fronto-limbic grey matter volume may represent pathways through which FEH may become biologically embedded.ResultsIn 98 university students aged 18–22 years, retrospective self-reported childhood FEH was associated with right hemisphere hippocampus (b = 10.4, p = 0.005), left hemisphere amygdala (b = 5.3, p = 0.009), and right hemisphere amygdala (b = 5.8, p = 0.016) volumes. After pre-processing and filtering to 5mC probes correlated between saliva and brain, analyses showed that childhood FEH was associated with 49 5mC principal components (module eigengenes; MEs) (prange = 3 × 10–6 to 0.047). Saliva-derived 5mC MEs partially mediated the association between FEH and right hippocampal volume (Burlywood ME indirect effect b = − 111, p = 0.014), and fully mediated the FEH and right amygdala volume relationship (Pink4 ME indirect effect b = − 48, p = 0.026). Modules were enriched with probes falling in genes with immune, central nervous system (CNS), cellular development/differentiation, and metabolic functions.ConclusionsFindings extend work highlighting neurodevelopmental variability associated with adverse social environment exposure during childhood by specifically implicating poor FEH, while informing a mechanism of biological embedding. FEH-associated epigenetic signatures could function as proxies of altered fronto-limbic grey matter volume associated with poor childhood FEH and inform further investigation into primarily affected tissues such as endocrine, immune, and CNS cell types.

【 授权许可】

CC BY