Intrauterine growth restriction is associated with adaptive hematopoietic reprogramming and selective immune rewiring in monozygotic twins
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Background
Prenatal growth restriction has been associated with adverse neonatal and long- term health outcomes, yet the epigenetic mechanisms by which an adverse intrauterine environment shapes fetal immune development remain incompletely understood. Monozygotic dichorionic-diamniotic twins with selective fetal growth restriction (sFGR) provide a unique human model for investigating environmentally driven developmental programming independent of genetic variation and inter-twin placental vascular anastomoses.
Methods
Umbilical cord blood buffy coat samples were collected from three sFGR and two gestational age-matched concordant control twin pairs. Bulk RNA sequencing and genome-wide DNA methylation analysis were performed, followed by differential expression, pathway enrichment, hematopoietic and immune module analyses, differential methylation, and integrative transcriptomic-epigenomic analyses.
Results
Compared with concordant control twin pairs, discordant twins exhibited broad attenuation of immune and inflammatory transcriptional programs alongside enrichment of erythroid- and hypoxia-related pathways, consistent with adaptive hematopoietic responses to intrauterine stress. Within discordant twin pairs, the growth-restricted co-twins displayed marked transcriptional asymmetry characterized by selective enrichment of cytotoxic lymphoid signatures despite global suppression of myeloid and antigen-presenting cell-associated programs. Integrated transcriptomic and epigenomic analyses further revealed coordinated epigenetic remodeling, with hypomethylated regions in growth-restricted twins enriched for immune regulatory pathways, including T cell differentiation and leukocyte activation. At selected loci, concordant hypomethylation and increased gene expression suggested a potential epigenetic basis for the observed immune remodeling.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that intrauterine growth restriction is associated with coordinated hematopoietic and immune reprogramming at birth, consistent with both compositional and cell-intrinsic alterations. In genetically identical twins, relative growth divergence was associated with polarized transcriptional states, highlighting how intrauterine environmental differences may shape early immune development independent of genetic background.
