Developmental origins of immune function: Maternal prenatal mood is associated with infant immune cell gene expression

The in-utero environment shapes offspring mental and physical health trajectories over the lifespan, likely through developmental adaptations to fetal biological systems. Offspring immune system development is a putative pathway through which the prenatal environment influences offspring health. The current study tested associations of maternal prenatal depressive and anxiety symptoms with infant pro-inflammatory and antiviral gene expression in a sample of 118 mother-infant pairs enrolled in a longitudinal study. Mothers reported on depressive and anxiety symptoms during interviews in early, mid, and late pregnancy. About one month after birth, trained research staff collected dried blood spots from infants during a heel stick procedure (M = 1.3 months, SD = 1.1 months). Infant dried blood spots were assayed for genome-wide transcriptional profiles using RNAseq. We evaluated associations of maternal prenatal depressive and anxiety symptoms with infant genome-wide transcriptional profiles and used bioinformatics analyses to identify upstream transcriptional pathways of differentially expressed genes. Higher maternal depressive symptom levels over the course of pregnancy were associated with upregulation of the pro-inflammatory NF-κB transcription control pathway and downregulation of the antiviral IRF control pathway in infants. In contrast, anxiety symptoms were associated with downregulation of the antiviral transcriptional control pathway in infants but were not associated with differences in the pro-inflammatory transcriptional control pathway. However, the association of anxiety symptoms with antiviral transcriptional control pathways was no longer significant with adjustment for depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that depressive symptoms during pregnancy may influence infant immune function via inflammatory and antiviral transcriptional control pathways, with potential implications for subsequent health.