Abstract

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are synthetic chemical substances that accumulate in our environment. POPs such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) have been classified as carcinogenic to humans and animals. Due to their resistance to biodegradation humans are still exposed to these compounds worldwide. We aim to evaluate the miRNA and transcriptomic response of a human population exposed to POPs. The miRNA and transcriptomic response was measured in blood of healthy subjects by microarray technology and associated with the serum concentrations of six PCB congeners, DDE (a common DDT metabolite), and HCB. A total of 93 miRNA levels appeared significantly associated with the POP-exposure (FDR < 0.05). The miRNA profile includes four tumor suppressor miRNAs, namely miR-193a-3p, miR-152, miR-31-5p and miR-34a-5p. Integration of the miRNA profile with the transcriptome profile suggests an interaction with oncogenes such as MYC, CCND1, BCL2 and VEGFA. We have shown that exposure to POPs is associated with human miRNA and transcriptomic responses. The identified miRNAs and target genes are related to various types of cancer and involved in relevant signaling pathways like wnt and p53. Therefore, these miRNAs may have great potential to contribute to biomarker-based environmental health risk assessment.

Details

Title
MicroRNA profile for health risk assessment: Environmental exposure to persistent organic pollutants strongly affects the human blood microRNA machinery
Author
Krauskopf, Julian 1 ; de Kok, Theo M 1 ; Hebels, Dennie G 1 ; Bergdahl, Ingvar A 2 ; Johansson, Anders 3 ; Spaeth, Florentin 4 ; Kiviranta, Hannu 5   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Rantakokko, Panu 5 ; Kyrtopoulos, Soterios A 6 ; Kleinjans, Jos C 1 

1  Department of Toxicogenomics, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands 
2  Department of Biobank Research, and Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden 
3  Nutrition Research, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden 
4  Faculty of Medicine, Department of Radiation Sciences, Oncology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden 
5  Department of Health Protection, Chemicals and Health Unit, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Kuopio, Finland 
6  Institute of Biology, Medicinal Chemistry and Biotechnology, National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, Greece 
Pages
1-9
Publication year
2017
Publication date
Aug 2017
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-10167-7
ProQuest document ID
1957857287
Copyright
© 2017. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.