Fig. 6

External validation of DNAm patterns. Boxplots of importance scores (y-axis) of variables (x-axis) predicting body mass index (BMI) in early childhood in the discovery cohort (ARIES) (A) versus independent replication cohort (Generation R) (B). Component 18 was selected in both cohorts. The replication cohort in B also ranked three other DNAm components that frequently showed relations to various other cardiometabolic outcomes (bold x-axis labels, Components 7, 11, and 19). Boxes appearing to the right of the grey vertical line (i.e. after the maximum randomised shadow variable) indicate relevant variables. The box and whiskers show the distribution of permutation values and cannot be used to tell statistical significance [31]. Purple—Dimension 2 (smoking in mother), green—Dimension 4 (smoking in mother + birth weight), pink—Dimension 5 (smoking in mother + household + birth weight). Inset: Sample size and performance metrics for each model. A Discovery Model from ARIES data using MRP DNAm patterns from cord blood to predict BMI (z-score by sex) at age 7 years. The x-axis includes the same control variables as in model 3 of Fig. 4C. B Validation Model from GenR data using MRP DNAm patterns in cord blood samples to predict BMI (z-score by sex) at age 6 years. The x-axis includes estimated cell type counts, sex, maternal education, and early growth (represented by BMI z-score measured between 13 and 17 months of age)