Childhood environment influences epigenetic age and methylation concordance of a CpG clock locus in British-Bangladeshi migrants

Abstract

Migration from one location to another often comes with a change in environmental conditions. Here, we analysed features of DNA methylation in young, adult British-Bangladeshi women who experienced different environments during their childhoods: a) migrants, who grew up in Bangladesh with exposure to comparatively higher pathogen loads and poorer health care, and b) second-generation British-Bangladeshis, born to Bangladeshi parents, who grew up in the UK. We used buccal DNA to estimate DNA methylation-based age (DNAm age) from 14 migrants and 11 second-generation migrants, aged 18–35 years. ‘AgeAccel,’ a measure of DNAm age, independent of chronological age, showed that the group of women who spent their childhood in Bangladesh had higher AgeAccel (P = 0.028), compared to their UK peers. Since epigenetic clocks have been proposed to be associated with maintenance processes of epigenetic systems, we evaluated the preference for concordant DNA methylation at the luteinizing hormone/choriogonadotropin receptor ( LHCGR/LHR ) locus, which harbours one of the CpGs contributing to Horvath’s epigenetic clock. Measurements on both strands of individual, double-stranded DNA molecules indicate higher stability of DNA methylation states at this LHCGR/LHR locus in samples of women who grew up in Bangladesh. Together, our two independent analytical approaches imply that childhood environments may induce subtle changes that are detectable long after exposure occurred, which might reflect altered activity of the epigenetic maintenance system or a difference in the proportion of cell types in buccal tissue. This exploratory work supports our earlier findings that adverse childhood environments lead to phenotypic life history trade-offs.

Srd5a1is Differentially Regulated and Methylated During Prepubertal Development in the Ovary and Hypothalamus

“…An additional study on the same populations of Bangladeshi women indicated faster rates of epigenetic aging among those who had grown up in Bangladesh compared to migrant Bangladeshi women who grew up in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, based on concordant DNA methylation at the LHCGR/LHR locus, the methylation appeared to be more stable [ 22 ]. DNA methylation is responsive to multiple external and internal signals and stressors, and altered methylation signatures at key regulatory regions of the genome can mediate long-term effects on gene expression, profoundly affecting physiological function [ 23-28 ].…”