ArticleTranslational psychiatry2014
Prenatal maternal immune activation causes epigenetic differences in adolescent mouse brain.
Article in Translational psychiatry, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 80 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 118 citations in OpenAlex.
- Maternal atopic conditions and autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Parental asthma and risk of autism spectrum disorder in offspring: A population and family-based case-control study.Clinical and experimental allergy : journal of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology · 2019Trial
- Exploring epigenetic modifications following maternal immune activation: a focus on cross-species translational potential.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2026Review
- Developmental modulation of schizophrenia risk gene methylation in offspring exhibiting cognitive deficits following maternal immune activation.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- The Nodding syndrome cerebrospinal fluid proteome: a lens into neurodevelopmental failure consistent with environmentally triggeredFrontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2026Article
- Epigenetic changes associated with multi-generational trauma: characterization, mechanisms, and therapeutics.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- An epigenetic perspective on neonatal encephalopathy with suspected hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy.Clinical epigenetics · 2025Review
- Therapeutic nanoparticle safety in pregnancy: Bridging knowledge gaps with environmental insights and a translational roadmap.Journal of controlled release : official journal of the Controlled Release Society · 2025Review
- Defining the landscape of prenatal nanomedicine and a roadmap for future research.Nanomedicine (London, England) · 2025Article
- Maternal immune activation imprints translational dysregulation and differential MAP2 phosphorylation in descendant neural stem cells.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Investigating the impact of severe maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection on infant DNA methylation and neurodevelopment.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Somatic Mosaicism in Brain Disorders.Annual review of pathology · 2025Review
- Immune Alterations in the Intrauterine Environment Shape Offspring Brain Development in a Sex-Specific Manner.Biological psychiatry · 2025Review
- Inhibitory Systems in Brain Evolution: Pathways of Vulnerability in Neurodevelopmental Disorders.Brain, behavior and evolution · 2025Review
- Critical Windows: Exploring the Association Between Perinatal Trauma, Epigenetics, and Chronic Pain.The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry · 2024Review
- Well controlled maternal inflammatory bowel disease does not increase the risk of abnormal neurocognitive outcome screening in offspring.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2024Article
- Inadequate linear catch-up growth in children born small for gestational age: Influencing factors and underlying mechanisms.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2024Review
- Viral infections in pregnancy and impact on offspring neurodevelopment: mechanisms and lessons learned.Pediatric research · 2024Review
- Article
- Neuroimmune mechanisms in autism etiology - untangling a complex problem using human cellular models.Oxford open neuroscience · 2024Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Epigenetic processes such as DNA methylation have been implicated in the pathophysiology of neurodevelopmental disorders including schizophrenia and autism. Epigenetic changes can be induced by environmental exposures such as inflammation. Here we tested the hypothesis that prenatal inflammation, a recognized risk factor for schizophrenia and related neurodevelopmental conditions, alters DNA methylation in key brain regions linked to schizophrenia, namely the dopamine rich striatum and endocrine regulatory centre, the hypothalamus. DNA methylation across highly repetitive elements (long interspersed element 1 (LINE1) and intracisternal A-particles (IAPs)) were used to proxy global DNA methylation. We also investigated the Mecp2 gene because it regulates transcription of LINE1 and has a known association with neurodevelopmental disorders. Brain tissue was harvested from 6 week old offspring of mice exposed to the viral analog PolyI:C or saline on gestation day 9. We used Sequenom EpiTYPER assay to quantitatively analyze differences in DNA methylation at IAPs, LINE1 elements and the promoter region of Mecp2. In the hypothalamus, prenatal exposure to PolyI:C caused significant global DNA hypomethylation (t=2.44, P=0.019, PolyI:C mean 69.67%, saline mean 70.19%), especially in females, and significant hypomethylation of the promoter region of Mecp2, (t=3.32, P=0.002; PolyI:C mean 26.57%, saline mean 34.63%). IAP methylation was unaltered. DNA methylation in the striatum was not significantly altered. This study provides the first experimental evidence that exposure to inflammation during prenatal life is associated with epigenetic changes, including Mecp2 promoter hypomethylation. This suggests that environmental and genetic risk factors associated with neurodevelopmental disorders may act upon similar pathways. This is important because epigenetic changes are potentially modifiable and their investigation may open new avenues for treatment.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.