Placental Expression of Imprinted Genes and Early Childhood Neurobehavioral Performance Open Access

Abstract

Imprinted genes in the placenta play a role in regulating the fetal environment, which affects fetal development and long-term health outcomes. Prior cross-sectional research has linked placental imprinted gene expression to neurobehavioral deficits at birth, and so we sought to examine if those measures also held prospective value. With available data in the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study for 136 mother-infant pairs, we examined the relationship between placental expression of imprinted genes and social responsiveness scores (SRS-2) of 3-year old children, using linear regression. After controlling for false discovery using the false discovery rate (FDR), we found none of the imprinted genes’ expression to be significantly associated with the SRS-2 T-score. The placental expression of HLA-DPB2 showed a nominally significant negative association with the SRS-2 T score (P=0.03). Because of the small amount of variation in SRS-2 scores for this cohort, larger cohorts may be better able to detect associations between placental expression of imprinted genes and developmental outcomes in the future.

Table of Contents

Introduction ………………………………….…………………...……………………….1

Methods …………………………………………………………………………………...6

Results …………………………………………………………………………………….9

Discussion ……………………………………………………………………………….10

Conclusion and Recommendations ……………………………………………………...13

References ……………………………………………………………………………….15

Table 1 …………………………………………………………………………………..20

Figure 1…………………………………………………………………………………..21

Table 2 …………………………………………………………………………………..22

Table 3 …………………………………………………………………………………..23

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Rollins School of Public Health
Department	Environmental Health
Degree	M.S.P.H.
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Environmental Health
Keyword	neurobehavior placenta imprinting epigenetics neurodevelopment developmental origins of health and disease
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Carmen Marsit, Emory University

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