DNA methylation (DNAm) plays an important role in epigenetic regulation of gene expression, orchestrating tissue differentiation and development during fetal life, childhood, and adolescence, and guiding functional activity in adulthood. Epigenetic control is especially important in human brain, where gene expression is extremely dynamic during fetal and infant life, and becomes progressively more stable at later periods of development1,2. Dysregulation of these precise and coordinated gene expression changes through epigenetic mechanisms may play a vital role in the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as schizophrenia (SZ) and related conditions3–5. Pathologically, these epigenetic changes, acting through gene expression, could disturb the formation of essential brain circuits, fitting into one prevailing set of hypotheses for the causes of schizophrenia, namely the “neurodevelopmental” hypothesis6.
