Adversity leaves long-term signatures in baboon DNA.

A study into baboon DNA has revealed that adversity in early life can have a long term effect on their health and survival.

It highlighted that poor habitat quality in early life was especially linked to changes in a baboon’s DNA in adult life.

The research, conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, investigated the concept of ‘biological embedding’, which is the idea that health issues such as disease susceptibility are linked to long-term changes in an animal’s biology.

The international team of researchers was exploring how changes in DNA methylation, an epigenetic modification of the DNA sequence, might be linked to baboons’ early life experiences.

Their study involved a population of 256 wild baboons in Kenya, consisting of 115 males and 141 females.

The population sample was considered particularly useful for analysis, as it would develop upon pre-existing findings on the effect of life adversity on female baboons. Previous research had found that female baboons which had experience early life adversity had higher stress hormone levels, weaker social bonds and lower offspring survival.

The scientists combined DNA methylation data with the site’s 50-year collection of ecological, behavioural and life history data to explore how the baboon’s earlier experiences may be affecting them in adult life.

Researchers were surprised to discover that a baboon losing its mother in early life was not strongly associated with DNA methylation variation. Similarly, early life social status and social isolation did not reveal any close links to the baboon’s future DNA.

However the clearest results linked DNA methylation with statistics on drought and poor habitat quality, which would limit the availability of food.

It also suggested that multiple exposures to adversity, such as being born into a poor early life habitat, resulted in stronger signatures of DNA methylation.

Prof Jenny Tung, lead author and director of the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution at the institute, said: “We have taken a step in this direction by using genomic approaches to test whether DNA methylation can influence gene expression in isolated cells, but much more research is needed to understand how early life adversity influences animal physiology, health, and survival, including, but not limited to, its effects on DNA methylation.”

The full study is published in the journal PNAS.

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