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Fig. 3 | BMC Medicine

Fig. 3

From: Developmental pathways to adiposity begin before birth and are influenced by genotype, prenatal environment and epigenome

Fig. 3

Influence of prenatal environment on methylome at birth. a Associations of DNA methylation at birth with prenatal environment. Colour in heatmap represents regression coefficients for associations between methylation and each prenatal environment variable. Each row represents a CpG and each column represents a prenatal environment variable. With increasing magnitudes, colour changes from white to red (for negative coefficients) or from white to blue (for positive coefficients). Asterisks within each square represent P values for associations between methylation and each prenatal environment variable (P < 5 × 10–8 is represented with eight asterisks, 5 × 10–8 ≤ P < 5 × 10–7 is represented with seven asterisks, 5 × 10–3 ≤ P < 5 × 10–2 is represented with two asterisks, P ≥ 5 × 10–2 is represented with a blank square). Analysis was done by linear regression of methylation at each CpG site against each prenatal environment variable, adjusted for child sex, gestational age, ethnicity, cellular proportions and interactions between ethnicity and cellular proportions. Regression coefficients and P values are reported as an increase in percent methylation for a 2 SD increase in continuous prenatal environment variable, or for comparing the two categories of binary prenatal environment variables. b Flow chart summarises associations between birth weight, methylation and prenatal environment for three CpGs (three loci) influenced by the prenatal environment. A CpG was defined to be influenced by the prenatal environment if the most significant association between the CpG and prenatal environment attained a P value of < 5 × 10–4 the Bonferroni threshold to maintain a family-wise Type 1 error rate of 0.05 across approximately 100 tests (8 CpGs x 11 prenatal environment variables). Directions in arrows indicate temporal sequence, measurements obtained at the same time are indicated with two-headed arrows

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