Aim: To classify the association between the maternal lipidome and DNA methylation in cord blood leukocytes. Materials & methods: Untargeted lipidomics was performed on first trimester maternal plasma (M1) and delivery maternal plasma (M3) in 100 mothers from the Michigan Mother-Infant Pairs cohort. Cord blood leukocyte DNA methylation was profiled using the Infinium EPIC bead array and empirical Bayes modeling identified differential DNA methylation related to maternal lipid groups. Results: M3-saturated lysophosphatidylcholine was associated with 45 differentially methylated loci and M3-saturated lysophosphatidylethanolamine was associated with 18 differentially methylated loci. Biological pathways enriched among differentially methylated loci by M3 saturated lysophosphatidylcholines were related to cell proliferation and growth. Conclusion: The maternal lipidome may be influential in establishing the infant epigenome.
Keywords: DNA methylation; developmental epigenetics; epigenome-wide association studies; lipidomics; lysophospholipids; pregnancy; umbilical cord blood.