Bmc Med
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Early maternal care restores LINE-1 methylation and enhances neurodevelopment in preterm infants.
Preterm birth affects almost 9-11% of newborns and is one of the leading causes of childhood neurodevelopmental disabilities; the underlying molecular networks are poorly defined. In neurons, retrotransposons LINE-1 (L1) are an active source of genomic mosaicism that is deregulated in several neurological disorders; early life experience has been shown to regulate L1 activity in mice. ⋯ Our results open the field on the inspection of L1 activity as a novel molecular and predictive approach to infants' prematurity-related neurodevelopmental outcomes.