Poverty blamed for gene change
Perhaps it affects the immune and nervous systems
Maxim Abdulaev, "The Attic"
Scientists have discovered the genetic consequences of poverty by analyzing data on almost 500 Filipinos. The researchers conclude that low social status may be associated with epigenetic changes in more than 1,500 genes.
Poverty and social inequality have a bad effect on health. They are associated with an increased risk of mortality from all causes, heart disease, many types of cancer, depression, an unfavorable outcome of childbirth and infectious diseases. But there was no information about how poverty can be associated with epigenetics yet.
Epigenetics studies the mechanisms of gene control. Such mechanisms are not related to inheritance, but affect genes, determining which of them will be expressed, that is, transform their hereditary information into protein or RNA. Epigenetic mechanisms can be influenced by the environment, including social status.
The authors of the article published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (McDade et al., Genome‐wide analysis of DNA methylation in relation to socio-economic status during development and early adulthood) studied the genes of participants in a long-term study of CLHNS. It has been conducted in Cebu City in the Philippines since 1983, the original purpose of the study was to study the diet of infants.
In their work, scientists used data from people who were born in 1983. In total, they selected about 500 people with different social status – from those whose income is 146 Philippine pesos to those who have it is 863 pesos per week. The average salary in the Philippines at that time was about 800 pesos per month (about $200). Scientists were also interested in the participants' assets – all their property, savings and deposits – and the time they spent on education by the time DNA samples were taken (the average age of the participant was 20 years).
Scientists analyzed genes from the participants' white blood cells to find sections of methylated DNA in them. This is the most typical and well-known example of epigenetic regulation. It is an attachment to the DNA of a methyl group (CH3–). If methyl groups are attached to the DNA chain, then they turn off the gene they joined. As a rule, this happens in special places (sites) – where the nitrogen bases, cytosine and guanine, are in the neighborhood (CpG-dinucleotide).
As a result, they found 2,546 CpG sites in 1,537 genes (about 10% of the entire genome) in which there was a difference in methylation between the low and high status groups. At the same time, those who are higher on the social ladder had 70% fewer modified sites.
According to scientists, the genes in which the methylated sites were located are involved in the work of the immune system, the development of the skeleton and the nervous system. Perhaps this explains the link between poverty and low disease resistance.
Since methylation is not inherited, most likely, scientists believe, such epigenetic features arise due to poor living conditions. At the same time, as one of the authors of the work, Thomas McDade, says, "socio-economic status can leave a strong molecular imprint that will have consequences for health in later life."
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