Residential PM2.5 exposure and the nasal methylome in children

Joanne E. Sordillo; Andres Cardenas; Cancan Qi; Sheryl L. Rifas-Shiman; Brent Coull; Heike Luttmann-Gibson; Joel Schwartz; Itai Kloog; Marie-France Hivert; Dawn L. DeMeo; Andrea A. Baccarelli; Cheng-Jian Xu; Ulrike Gehring; Judith M. Vonk; Gerard Koppelman; Emily Oken; Diane R. Gold

Environment International (Aug 2021)

Residential PM2.5 exposure and the nasal methylome in children

Joanne E. Sordillo,
Andres Cardenas,
Cancan Qi,
Sheryl L. Rifas-Shiman,
Brent Coull,
Heike Luttmann-Gibson,
Joel Schwartz,
Itai Kloog,
Marie-France Hivert,
Dawn L. DeMeo,
Andrea A. Baccarelli,
Cheng-Jian Xu,
Ulrike Gehring,
Judith M. Vonk,
Gerard Koppelman,
Emily Oken,
Diane R. Gold

Affiliations

Joanne E. Sordillo: Division of Chronic Disease Research Across the Lifecourse, Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, USA
Andres Cardenas: Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, 2121 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA, USA
Cancan Qi: University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Department of Pediatric Pulmonology and Pediatric Allergy, Beatrix Children’s Hospital, Groningen, the Netherlands; University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen Research Institute for Asthma and COPD (GRIAC), Groningen, the Netherlands
Sheryl L. Rifas-Shiman: Division of Chronic Disease Research Across the Lifecourse, Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, USA
Brent Coull: Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
Heike Luttmann-Gibson: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
Joel Schwartz: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
Itai Kloog: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
Marie-France Hivert: Division of Chronic Disease Research Across the Lifecourse, Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, USA
Dawn L. DeMeo: Channing Division of Network Medicine and Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Andrea A. Baccarelli: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, NY, NY, USA
Cheng-Jian Xu: Research Group of Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics, CiiM, Centre for individualized infection medicine, a joint venture between Hannover Medical School and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Hannover, Germany; Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, TWINCORE, Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research, a joint venture between the Hannover Medical School and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Hannover, Germany; Department of Internal Medicine, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Ulrike Gehring: Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
Judith M. Vonk: University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen Research Institute for Asthma and COPD (GRIAC), Groningen, the Netherlands; University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Department of Epidemiology, Groningen, the Netherlands
Gerard Koppelman: University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Department of Pediatric Pulmonology and Pediatric Allergy, Beatrix Children’s Hospital, Groningen, the Netherlands; University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen Research Institute for Asthma and COPD (GRIAC), Groningen, the Netherlands
Emily Oken: Division of Chronic Disease Research Across the Lifecourse, Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, USA
Diane R. Gold: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; Channing Division of Network Medicine and Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Corresponding author.

Journal volume & issue: Vol. 153
p. 106505

Abstract

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Rationale: PM2.5-induced adverse effects on respiratory health may be driven by epigenetic modifications in airway cells. The potential impact of exposure duration on epigenetic alterations in the airways is not yet known. Objectives: We aimed to study associations of fine particulate matter PM2.5 exposure with DNA methylation in nasal cells. Methods: We conducted nasal epigenome-wide association analyses within 503 children from Project Viva (mean age 12.9 y), and examined various exposure durations (1-day, 1-week, 1-month, 3-months and 1-year) prior to nasal sampling. We used residential addresses to estimate average daily PM2.5 at 1 km resolution. We collected nasal swabs from the anterior nares and measured DNA methylation (DNAm) using the Illumina MethylationEPIC BeadChip. We tested 719,075 high quality autosomal CpGs using CpG-by-CpG and regional DNAm analyses controlling for multiple comparisons, and adjusted for maternal education, household smokers, child sex, race/ethnicity, BMI z-score, age, season at sample collection and cell-type heterogeneity. We further corrected for bias and genomic inflation. We tested for replication in a cohort from the Netherlands (PIAMA). Results: In adjusted analyses, we found 362 CpGs associated with 1-year PM2.5 (FDR < 0.05), 20 CpGs passing Bonferroni correction (P < 7.0x10-8) and 10 Differentially Methylated Regions (DMRs). In 445 PIAMA participants (mean age 16.3 years) 11 of 203 available CpGs replicated at P < 0.05. We observed differential DNAm at/near genes implicated in cell cycle, immune and inflammatory responses. There were no CpGs or regions associated with PM2.5 levels at 1-day, 1-week, or 1-month prior to sample collection, although 2 CpGs were associated with past 3-month PM2.5. Conclusion: We observed wide-spread DNAm variability associated with average past year PM2.5 exposure but we did not detect associations with shorter-term exposure. Our results suggest that nasal DNAm marks reflect chronic air pollution exposure.

Published in Environment International

ISSN: 0160-4120 (Print)
Publisher: Elsevier
Country of publisher: United Kingdom
LCC subjects: Geography. Anthropology. Recreation: Environmental sciences
Website: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/environment-international

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