21-08-09_momcope_slc6a4_db

This database includes the raw data linked with the paper “Hidden pandemic: COVID‐19‐related stress, SLC6A4 methylation, and infants’ temperament at 3 months”, published on Scientific Reports, doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95053-z. This publication is part of the longitudinal and multi-centric “Measuring the outcomes of maternal COVID-19-related prenatal exposure (MOM-COPE)” research project. In this paper we report on (1) the effects of COVID-19-related prenatal stress on maternal and infants’ SLC6A4 methylation and (2) the association between infants’ SLC6A4 methylation and temperament assessed at 3 months of age.

Procedures

Maternal pandemic-related prenatal stress was assessed through the ad-hoc questionnaire attached (file name: 21-08-09_momcope_slc6a4_adhoc.pdf).

Infant’s temperament at three months was assessed using the short form version of the Infant Behaviour Questionnaire-Revised, IBQ-R (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003).

The methylation status of the SLC6A4 gene’s region (chr17:28562750–28562958, 13 CpGs) was assessed by PCR amplification of bisulfite-treated DNA followed by Next Generation Sequencing.

Analytical plan

Bivariate Pearson’s correlation coefficients were computed to assess the association among COVID-19-related prenatal stress and both infants and mothers’ methylation status of SLC6A4 CpG sites. A principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the number of methylation items. Linear general models were used to estimate: (1) the association between COVID-19-related prenatal stress and infants SLC6A4 PC1 methylation; and (2) the association between infants SLC6A4 PC1 methylation and 3-month surgency score.

Findings in brief

The findings are reported in full in the related paper (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95053-z) and they revealed that greater COVID‐19‐related prenatal stress was significantly associated with higher infants’ SLC6A4 methylation in seven CpG sites. SLC6A4 methylation at these sites predicted infants’ surgency at 3 months.