Associations of peripheral blood DNA methylation and estimated monocyte proportion differences during infancy with toddler attachment style.

Abstract

Attachment is a motivational system promoting felt security to a caregiver resulting in a persistent internal working model of interpersonal behavior. Attachment styles are developed in early social environments and predict future health and development outcomes with potential biological signatures, such as epigenetic modifications like DNA methylation (DNAm). Thus, we hypothesized infant DNAm would associate with toddler attachment styles. An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of blood DNAm from 3-month-old infants was regressed onto children's attachment style from the Strange Situation Procedure at 22-months at multiple DNAm Cytosine-phosphate-Guanine (CpG) sites. The 26 identified CpGs associated with proinflammatory immune phenotypes and cognitive development. In post-hoc analyses, only maternal cognitive-growth fostering, encouraging intellectual exploration, contributed. For disorganized children, DNAm-derived cell-type proportions estimated higher monocytes -cells in immune responses hypothesized to increase with early adversity. Collectively, these findings suggested the potential biological embedding of both adverse and advantageous social environments as early as 3-months-old.