Maternal Epigenetic Signatures Linking Prenatal Serum PFAS Concentrations to Birth Size in an African American Maternal–Child Cohort

Among 296 mother–infant dyads in the Atlanta African American Maternal–Child Cohort (2016–2020), early pregnancy maternal blood samples (8–14 weeks) were processed for serum PFAS assessment and blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) DNA methylation profiling. We assessed birth size using sex-specific birth weight <i>z</i>-scores (BWZ) and small-for-gestational-age (SGA) status.

Individual and mixture PFAS methylation associations were estimated by using robust generalized linear regression and quantile g-computation. We also conducted differentially methylated region (DMR), gene ontology, sex-specific, and exploratory mediation analyses. Overall, 132 CpGs were associated with at least one PFAS (FDR < 0.05), including 34, 60, 32, and 10 linked with PFHxS, PFOS, PFOA, and PFNA, respectively.