Maternal alcohol consumption and offspring DNA methylation: findings from six general population-based birth cohorts

Abstract

Aim: Alcohol consumption during pregnancy is sometimes associated with adverse outcomes in offspring, potentially mediated by epigenetic modifications. We aimed to investigate genome-wide DNA methylation in cord blood of newborns exposed to alcohol in utero. Materials&methods: We meta-analyzed information from six population-based birth cohorts within the Pregnancy and Childhood Epigenetics consortium. Results: We found no strong evidence of association at either individual CpGs or across larger regions of the genome. Conclusion: Our findings suggest no association between maternal alcohol consumption and offspring cord blood DNA methylation. This is in stark contrast to the multiple strong associations previous studies have found for maternal smoking, which is similarly socially patterned. However, it is possible that a combination of a larger sample size, higher doses, different timings of exposure, exploration of a different tissue and a more global assessment of genomic DNA methylation might show evidence of association.

Keywords::

• alcohol
• cord blood
• DNA methylation
• epidemiology
• epigenetics
• meta-analysis
• PACE consortium
• pregnancy

Supplementary data

To view the supplementary data that accompany this paper please visit the journal website at:www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2217/epi-2017-0095

Financial&competing interests disclosure

The ALSPAC cohort was supported by the Wellcome Trust (WT088806). The Project Viva cohort is funded by NIH grants R01 HL111108, R01 NR013945, and R01 HD034568. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.

Additional information

Funding

The ALSPAC cohort was supported by the Wellcome Trust (WT088806). The Project Viva cohort is funded by NIH grants R01 HL111108, R01 NR013945, and R01 HD034568. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.