Grant: Team Grant: China-Canada Collaborative Teams in Health Research

Maternal depression has an impact on the health of a mother's offspring. However the mechanisms responsible for marking maternal adversity in the life history of the offspring are unknown. Although genetic transmission might be involved in a certain fraction of cases, recent data suggest that the maternal "social environment" can sculpt the way by which the genome of the offspring is marked and programmed through "epigenetic" programming. The goal of this proposal is to profile the "epigenetic" marks in the DNA from a defined subset of blood cells in "depressed" mothers and their offspring using an animal mouse depression model as well as a human (Canadian) cohort. Utilizing state-of-the-art whole-genome mapping methods developed jointly in Canada and China. Our goal is to understand the gene circuitries involved and the consequent physiological mechanisms. Since "epigenetic" marks in difference from genetic marks are potentially reversible, the profiles unraveled would have a significant impact on prevention, prediction and treatment of illness.