An Epigenome-Wide Association Study for Prenatal Lead Exposure and Umbilical Cord Blood DNA Methylation in Project Viva

Background/Aim: Early-life exposure to lead is associated with deficits in neurodevelopment and hematopoietic system toxicity. DNA methylation may be one of the underlying mechanisms for the adverse effects of prenatal lead on the offspring, but epigenome-wide methylation data for low levels of prenatal lead exposure are lacking. We aimed to investigate the association between prenatal maternal lead exposure and epigenome-wide DNA methylation in umbilical cord blood in Project Viva, a prospective US-based pre-birth cohort with relatively low levels of lead exposure.Methods: Among 268 mother-infant pairs, we measured lead concentrations in red blood cells (RBC) from prenatal maternal blood samples, and using HumanMethylation450 Bead Chip, we measured genome-wide methylation levels at 482,397 CpG loci in umbilical cord blood and retained 394,460 loci after quality control. After adjustment for …