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Project Ice Storm was conceived following the January 1998 Quebec ice storm. In the picture, a before and after picture of the ice storm. (Photo Credit: Doug, flickr.com)
A new study has detected a distinctive ‘signature’ in the DNA of children born in the aftermath of the 1998 Quebec ice storm.
Five months after the 1998 Quebec ice storm, researchers recruited women who had been pregnant during the disaster and assessed their degrees of distress in a study called Project Ice Storm. Fifteen years later, they found that DNA inside the T cells – a type of immune system cell – of 36 children was modified with a specific pattern of methyl molecules.
This type of DNA modification, called methylation, plays a role in the way the gene express themselves. However the health impacts of these particular changes are not yet known.
This study is the first to show that stress in pregnant women did cause long lasting changes in the genome of their babies.
Original research paper published in PLOS ONE on September 19, 2014.
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