Prenatal Exposure to Maternal Depressed Mood and the MTHFR C677T Variant Affect SLC6A4 Methylation in Infants at Birth

Abstract

These findings show that the MTHFR C677T variant is associated with greater depressed mood during pregnancy. We further showed that prenatal exposure to maternal depressed mood affects gene-specific DNA methylation patterns. These findings support the concept that alterations in epigenetic processes may contribute to developmental programming of behaviour by maternal depression.