Adverse Childhood Experiences, Epigenetic Measures, and Obesity in Youth
ORIGINAL www.jpeds.com • THE JOURNAL OF PEDIATRICS ARTICLES Adverse Childhood Experiences, Epigenetic Measures, and Obesity in Youth Joan Kaufman, PhD1,2,3, Janitza L. Montalvo-Ortiz, PhD3, Hannah Holbrook,BA4, Kerry O'Loughlin,BA4, Catherine Orr, PhD4, Catherine Kearney,MA1, Bao-Zhu Yang, PhD3, Tao Wang, PhD5,6, Hongyu Zhao, PhD5, Robert Althoff, MD, PhD4, Hugh Garavan, PhD4, Joel Gelernter,MD3,7, and James Hudziak,MD4 Objective To determine if measures of adverse childhood experiences and DNA methylation relate to indices of obesity in youth. Study design Participants were derived from a cohort of 321 8 to 15-year-old children recruited for an investi- gation examining risk and resilience and psychiatric outcomes in maltreated children. Assessments of obesity were collected as an add-on for a subset of 234 participants (56% female; 52% maltreated). Illumina arrays were used to examine whole genome epigenetic predictors of obesity in saliva DNA. For analytic purposes, the cohort ana- lyzed in the first batch comprised the discovery sample (n = 160), and the cohort analyzed in the second batch the replication sample (n = 74). Results After controlling for race, sex, age, cell heterogeneity, 3 principal components, and whole genome testing, 10 methylation sites were found to interact with adverse childhood experiences to predict cross-sectional mea- sures of body mass index, and an additional 6 sites were found to exert a main effect in predicting body mass index (P < 5.0 × 10−7, all comparisons). Eight of the methylation sites were in genes previously associated with obesity risk (eg, PCK2, CxCl10, BCAT1, HID1, PRDM16, MADD, PXDN, GALE), with several of the findings from the dis- covery data set replicated in the second cohort.
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