Exploring the link between environment and health

How does our environment affect our health? Researchers supported by the EU-funded ATHLETE project have offered new insight into environmental exposures in early life and their health effects.

Using data collected as part of HELIX, another EU-backed project, the team linked an extensive range of chemical, outdoor, social and lifestyle exposures in pregnancy and childhood with different molecular profiles in childhood. The research was published in the journal ‘Nature Communications’.

As noted in the study, our exposome – all the environmental (non-genetic) factors we are exposed to in our lifetime – is responsible for 70 to 90 % of the risk we face of developing a disease. “Early life is a particularly important period, since exposures during these developmentally vulnerable periods may have pronounced effects at the molecular level, which may not be clinically detectable until adulthood,” explains co-first author Research Professor Martine Vrijheid of ATHLETE and HELIX project coordinator Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Spain, in a news item posted on the institute’s website.For the purposes of the study, the team analysed data from 1 301 mother-child pairs participating in the HELIX cohort study in six European cities in France, Greece, Lithuania, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom. Through these analyses, they investigated the associations between over 100 chemical, outdoor, social and lifestyle exposures in pregnancy and when the children were 6-11 years old with molecular profiles in the same children. The profiles included DNA methylation and gene transcription in blood, plasma proteins, and metabolites in serum and urine.

The researchers were able to identify 1 170 associations – 249 in pregnancy and 921 in childhood – that point to potential biological responses and sources of exposure. Pregnancy exposures such as maternal smoking, cadmium and molybdenum were mainly associated with changes in DNA methylation in childhood. In contrast, childhood exposures were linked with signatures at all molecular levels, and especially with metabolites in serum.

“We identified novel multi-omics associations with childhood exposure to essential trace elements, weather conditions, indoor air quality, and phthalates and parabens,” states co-first author Assistant Research Professor Léa Maitre, also from ISGlobal, in the news item. “By visualizing these associations as networks, we can better understand if a given molecular profile is connected to several exposures or vice versa, and thereby identify potential biological pathways.”

The systematic documentation of all associations between the exposome and molecular profiles available on the HELIX website will help scientists identify novel exposure biomarkers and early biological effects during developmentally vulnerable periods. “With the rich exposome and molecular information available in our catalogue, we provide a valuable resource to the scientific community for finding exposure biomarkers, identifying exposure sources, improving the understanding of disease mechanisms, and, ultimately, promoting public health policies,” observes Prof. Vrijheid.

HELIX (The Human Early-Life Exposome – novel tools for integrating early-life environmental exposures and child health across Europe) ended in 2017. The 4-year ATHLETE (Advancing Tools for Human Early Lifecourse Exposome Research and Translation) project ends in December 2024.

For more information, please see:

ATHLETE project website

HELIX project web page