Smaller stature in childhood following assisted reproductive technologies (ART) is not explained by parental or gestational factors, early childhood environment, or fetal DNA methylation [GUSTO_cord_tissue]

As part of an investigation on contributors to offspring size following assisted reproduction, we investigated fetal cord tissue DNA methylation at 281 CpGs previously associated with maternal pregnancy morbidity or offspring growth across various tissues. The Illumina HumanMethylation450 BeadChip was used to obtain DNA methylation profiles in previously frozen cord tissues samples from 69 assisted reproduction-conceived and 950 spotaneously conceived live births. GUSTO (Growing Up In Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes; n = 1178) is a nationally-representative pregnancy and birth cohort with continuous follow-up from early gestiation through 10 years. Illumina HumanMethylation 450K was used to evaluate genome-wide DNA methylation in fetal cord tissue samples for all live births with sufficient sample quantities. Genome-wide DNA methylation in maternal mid-/late- pregnancy peripheral blood buffy coat was profiled separately by Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip for women with sufficient sample quantities. These data are reported in a a separate series.