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Epigenetics as a Biomarker for Early-Life Environmental Exposure

  • Early Life Environmental Health (H Volk and J Buckley, Section Editors)
  • Published:
Current Environmental Health Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

There is interest in evaluating the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) which emphasizes the role of prenatal and early-life environments on non-communicable health outcomes throughout the life course. The ability to rigorously assess and identify early-life risk factors for later health outcomes, including those with childhood onset, in large population samples is often limited due to measurement challenges such as impractical costs associated with prospective studies with a long follow-up duration, short half-lives for some environmental toxicants, and lack of biomarkers that capture inter-individual differences in biologic response to external environments.

Recent Findings

Epigenomic patterns, and DNA methylation in particular, have emerged as a potential objective biomarker to address some of these study design and exposure measurement challenges. In this article, we summarize the literature to date on epigenetic changes associated with specific prenatal and early-life exposure domains as well as exposure mixtures in human observational studies and their biomarker potential. Additionally, we highlight evidence for other types of epigenetic patterns to serve as exposure biomarkers.

Summary

Evidence strongly supports epigenomic biomarkers of exposure that are detectable across the lifespan and across a range of exposure domains. Current and future areas of research in this field seek to expand these lines of evidence to other environmental exposures, to determine their specificity, and to develop predictive algorithms and methylation scores that can be used to evaluate early-life risk factors for health outcomes across the life span.

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References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance

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Acknowledgements

Rose Schrott is supported by the NIMH Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Program (5T32MH014592-44; PI: Volk, Heather).

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  1. Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Rose Schrott & Ashley Song

  2. Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

    Christine Ladd-Acosta

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  1. Rose Schrott
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Correspondence to Christine Ladd-Acosta.

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Dr. Ladd-Acosta reports receiving consulting fees from the University of Iowa for providing expertise on autism spectrum disorder epigenetics outside of this work. Drs. Schrott and Song declare no competing interests.

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Schrott, R., Song, A. & Ladd-Acosta, C. Epigenetics as a Biomarker for Early-Life Environmental Exposure. Curr Envir Health Rpt 9, 604–624 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-022-00373-5

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