Advancing tools for human early lifecourse exposome research and translation (ATHLETE)

Abstract

Early life stages are vulnerable to environmental hazards and present important windows of opportunity for lifelong disease prevention. This makes early life a relevant starting point for exposome studies. The Advancing Tools for Human Early Lifecourse Exposome Research and Translation (ATHLETE) project aims to develop a toolbox of exposome tools and a Europe-wide exposome cohort that will be used to systematically quantify the effects of a wide range of community- and individual-level environmental risk factors on mental, cardiometabolic, and respiratory health outcomes and associated biological pathways, longitudinally from early pregnancy through to adolescence. Exposome tool and data development include as follows: (1) a findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable (FAIR) data infrastructure for early life exposome cohort data, including 16 prospective birth cohorts in 11 European countries; (2) targeted and nontargeted approaches to measure a wide range of environmental exposures (urban, chemical, physical, behavioral, social); (3) advanced statistical and toxicological strategies to analyze complex multidimensional exposome data; (4) estimation of associations between the exposome and early organ development, health trajectories, and biological (metagenomic, metabolomic, epigenetic, aging, and stress) pathways; (5) intervention strategies to improve early life urban and chemical exposomes, co-produced with local communities; and (6) child health impacts and associated costs related to the exposome. Data, tools, and results will be assembled in an openly accessible toolbox, which will provide great opportunities for researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders, beyond the duration of the project. ATHLETE’s results will help to better understand and prevent health damage from environmental exposures and their mixtures from the earliest parts of the life course onward.

Towards an Interoperable Ecosystem of Research Cohort and Real-world Data Catalogues Enabling Multi-center Studies

“…Secondly, users can browse the cohorts to receive general descriptions of the cohort. Currently, the LifeCycle catalogue is being expanded to include metadata from other harmonisation consortia, notably LongITools [18] and ATHLETE [19] and to be expanded to other consortia in the European Human Exposome Network (https://www.humanexposome.eu/). These catalogues are available as open source via the MOLGENIS software suite [20].…”

Integrating -omics approaches into population-based studies of endocrine disrupting chemicals: a scoping review

“…These platforms have also been used in in vivo and in vitro toxicological studies of EDCs to improve understanding of mechanisms (Montjean et al, 2022;Sun et al, 2022). In addition, increasing numbers of epidemiological studies have employed or will employ -omics in the framework of large exposome studies, to identify early effect predictors for health risks due to EDC exposure (Maitre et al, 2018;Vrijheid et al, 2021). However, no studies to date have evaluated the methodology and robustness of ndings in these environmental omics studies.…”

Mixtures of chemical pollutants and neurodevelopment in children

“…TDAH (trouble déficit d'attention/hyperactivité) est la plus forte avec l'exposition prénatale au tabac et au trafic routier parmi 13 expositions ayant au moins un effet comportemental. L'exposition pendant l'enfance au plomb, cuivre, pollution extérieure, mauvaise alimentation est associée à plus de troubles comportementaux alors qu'un sommeil plus long, une alimentation saine, des facteurs sociaux et familiaux favorables ont un effet protecteur.Dans le cadre du Réseau européen de l'exposome humain (The European Human Exposome Network), en 2020, le projet Athlete (Advancing Tool for Human Early Lifecourse Exposome Research and Translation) dans la continuité du projet Helix vise à développer une boite à outils exposome et une cohorte exposome à l'échelle européenne (11 cohortes sollicitées) afin de quantifier les effets sur la santé d'un large éventail de facteurs de risque environnementaux au niveau individuel ou des populations et les voies biologiques associées de manière longitudinale du début de la grossesse à l'adolescence(32). Une étude récente(33) du projet propose un guide méthodologique (en particulier en termes d'outils statistiques selon la question abordée) pour l'analyse des mesures d'exposome dans les cohortes de naissance et l'intégration des données omiques.Etudes expérimentalesLes études chez l'animal, principalement le rat et la souris, conduites dans des conditions contrôlées d'exposition prénatale et/ou postnatale aux différents polluants environnementaux, montrent divers effets sur le neurodéveloppement (voir les articles précédents).…”