Department of Psychiatry, Boston Children's Hospital, 300 Longwood Ave, AT-120.3, Mailstop BCH 3199, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
EPIGET Lab, Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, Università degli Studi di Milano, via San Barnaba 8, 20122, Milan, Italy.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2018 Sep;95:74-85. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.05.025. Epub 2018 May 17.
Little research has examined determinants of newborn telomere length, a potential biomarker of lifetime disease risk impacted by prenatal exposures. No study has examined whether maternal exposures in childhood influence newborn telomere length or whether there are sex differences in the maternal factors that influence newborn telomere length. We tested whether a range of maternal risk and protective factors in childhood and pregnancy were associated with newborn telomere length among 151 sociodemographically diverse mother-infant dyads. We further examined whether the pattern of associations differed by infant sex. Newborn telomere length was assessed from cord blood collected at birth. Risk/protective factors included maternal health (smoking, body mass index), socioeconomic status (education, income), stress exposures, and mental health (depressive and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms) in pregnancy as well as maternal experiences of abuse (physical, emotional, sexual) and familial emotional support in childhood. When examined within the whole sample, only maternal smoking in pregnancy and familial emotional support in childhood emerged as significant predictors of newborn telomere length. Male and female newborns differed in their pattern of associations between the predictors and telomere length. Among males, maternal smoking, higher body mass index, and elevated depressive symptoms in pregnancy and maternal sexual abuse in childhood were associated with shorter newborn telomere length; higher maternal educational attainment and household income in pregnancy and greater maternal familial emotional support in childhood were associated with longer newborn telomere length. Together, these factors accounted for 34% of the variance in male newborn telomere length. None of the risk/protective factors were associated with female newborn telomere length. The results suggest that male fetuses are particularly susceptible to maternal exposure effects on newborn telomere length. These findings have implications for elucidating mechanisms contributing to sex disparities in health.
鲜有研究探究过新生儿端粒长度的决定因素，端粒长度是一种潜在的生物标志物，可反映一生中受产前暴露影响的疾病风险。尚无研究检验过儿童期的母体暴露是否会影响新生儿端粒长度，或者是否存在影响新生儿端粒长度的母体因素存在性别差异。我们检验了童年期和孕期的一系列母体风险和保护因素是否与 151 对社会人口学差异较大的母婴对子的新生儿端粒长度有关。我们进一步检验了关联模式是否因婴儿性别而异。从出生时采集的脐带血评估新生儿端粒长度。风险/保护因素包括孕期的母亲健康（吸烟、体重指数）、社会经济地位（教育、收入）、压力暴露和心理健康（抑郁和创伤后应激障碍症状），以及童年期的母亲受虐待经历（身体、情感、性）和家庭情感支持。在整个样本中进行检验时，只有孕期母亲吸烟和童年期家庭情感支持是新生儿端粒长度的显著预测因子。男性和女性新生儿在预测因子与端粒长度之间的关联模式上存在差异。在男性中，孕期母亲吸烟、体重指数较高、孕期抑郁症状加重以及童年期母亲性虐待与新生儿端粒长度较短有关；孕期母亲教育程度较高、家庭收入较高以及童年期母亲家庭情感支持较大与新生儿端粒长度较长有关。这些因素共同解释了男性新生儿端粒长度 34%的差异。风险/保护因素均与女性新生儿端粒长度无关。研究结果表明，男性胎儿特别容易受到母体暴露对新生儿端粒长度的影响。这些发现对于阐明导致健康方面性别差异的机制具有启示意义。
