Prenatal Substance Exposure and DNA Methylation in Children

Key Takeaways:

This presentation will focus on the current landscape of maternal substance use during pregnancy and some of the known effects on offspring, including changes to DNA methylation. DNA methylation is a chemical modification that controls how genes are expressed, and these alterations may lead to changes in normal development. DNA methylation patterns can serve as a molecular record or biomarker of prenatal substance exposure and can be used to understand potential biological pathways or mechanisms linked to future health outcomes. This presentation will specifically focus on how we can fill gaps in knowledge related to the effects of prenatal tobacco and cannabis exposure, by highlighting previous work in ECHO and describing opportunities for future studies.

Lyndsey Shorey-Kendrick, PhD

Computational Biologist

Oregon National Primate Research Center

Division of Neuroscience

Biography:

Dr. Shorey-Kendrick is a Computational Biologist in the Department of Neuroscience at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. Her research focuses on how in utero exposures (e.g. cigarette smoke, cannabis, alcohol, and diet) can interact with the epigenome to alter fetal development and future health outcomes. Her work has linked prenatal vitamin C supplementation to improved lung function in childhood via DNA methylation signatures, identified placental DNA methylation as a mediator of dysregulated transcriptional signaling and placental function in pregnant smokers, and led to the development of a novel placental DNAm biomarker of maternal smoking in ECHO.

Meeting Link: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/297350639989589?p=tScRrHqwVwfDa7DlRC