Early life exposure to indoor air pollution and DNA methylation change in female never smokers

Exposure to environmental contaminants has long been known to purport detrimental health effects and contribute to the pathogenesis of many disease states. Much research has aimed at drawing associations between air pollution and disease; with a specific focus on carcinogenesis. To better explain such phenomena, scientists have recently turned to the field of molecular epidemiology in order to investigate gene-environment interactions and their related contribution to disease etiology. A major component of such is elucidating the role of epigenetics, which includes DNA methylation. Epigenetic change during early life has been implicated in a variety of diseases, and it is now believed that such early exposure has major implications and presuppositions for later adult disease. Herein, it is important to tie together molecular characteristics and exposure settings throughout developmental windows. Here we investigate the relationship between early life exposure to indoor air pollution from solid fuel and aberrant DNA methylation (both globally and site-specific). Utilizing a group of never smoking women from a preexisting European case-control study, associations were found between both type and source of indoor air pollution during early life and epigenetic characteristics—including global hypomethylation and hypermethylation of the IGF2/H19 gene’s imprinted control region. Such findings have the potential to identify critical windows of developmental susceptibility, and address the harmful effects of a global public health concern.