ArticleCellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS2024
Sex differences in DNA methylation across gestation: a large scale, cross-cohort, multi-tissue analysis.
Article in Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 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
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- NewbornGenes · 2025Pooled it
- Maternal Exercise and Nutrition Function as Interconnected Regulators of Embryonic Organogenesis and Fetal Development.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Associations between prenatal per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and repeated measures of bioactive lipids during pregnancy in the LIFECODES cohort.The Science of the total environment · 2026Article
- Contribution of DNA methylation predicted leptin to all-cause, cancer, and cardiovascular mortality among US adults aged 50 years and older: findings from NHANES 1999-2002.Therapeutic advances in endocrinology and metabolism · 2026Article
- Maternal dietary fibre intake results in sex-specific single-cell molecular changes in the heart of the offspring.Clinical science (London, England : 1979) · 2025Article
- Adverse neonatal outcomes are associated with a sex-specific placental inflammatory profile†.Biology of reproduction · 2025Article
- Sex-differentiated placental methylation and gene expression regulation has implications for neonatal traits and adult diseases.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Association of Prenatal Healthy and Unhealthy Plant-Based Diets with Behavioral Outcomes in Preschool Children.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Effects of positive mGlu5 modulation on DJournal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 6 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Biological sex is a key variable influencing many physiological systems. Disease prevalence as well as treatment success can be modified by sex. Differences emerge already early in life and include pregnancy complications and adverse birth outcomes. The placenta is a critical organ for fetal development and shows sex-based differences in the expression of hormones and cytokines. Epigenetic regulation, such as DNA methylation (DNAm), may underlie the previously reported placental sexual dimorphism. We associated placental DNAm with fetal sex in three cohorts. Individual cohort results were meta-analyzed with random-effects modelling. CpG-sites differentially methylated with sex were further investigated regarding pathway enrichment, overlap with methylation quantitative trait loci (meQTLs), and hits from phenome-wide association studies (PheWAS). We evaluated the consistency of findings across tissues (CVS, i.e. chorionic villus sampling from early placenta, and cord blood) as well as with gene expression. We identified 10,320 epigenome-wide significant sex-differentially methylated probes (DMPs) spread throughout the epigenome of the placenta at birth. Most DMPs presented with lower DNAm levels in females. DMPs mapped to genes upregulated in brain, were enriched for neurodevelopmental pathways and significantly overlapped with meQTLs and PheWAS hits. Effect sizes were moderately correlated between CVS and placenta at birth, but only weakly correlated between birth placenta and cord blood. Sex differential gene expression in birth placenta was less pronounced and implicated genetic regions only marginally overlapped with those associated with differential DNAm. Our study provides an integrative perspective on sex-differential DNAm in perinatal tissues underscoring the possible link between placenta and brain.
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Registered trials
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