Linking emerging contaminants exposure to adverse health effects: Crosstalk between epigenome and environment

Abstract

Environmental epigenetic findings shed new light on the roles of epigenetic regulations in environmental exposure‐induced toxicities or disease susceptibilities. Currently, environmental emerging contaminants (ECs) are in focus for further investigation due to the evidence of human exposure in addition to their environmental occurrences. However, the adverse effects of these environmental ECs on health through epigenetic mechanisms are still poorly addressed in many aspects. This review discusses the epigenetic mechanisms (DNA methylation, histone modifications, and microRNA expressions) linking ECs exposure to health outcomes. We emphasized on the recent literature describing how ECs can dysregulate epigenetic mechanisms and lead to downstream health outcomes. These up‐to‐date research outputs could provide novel insights into the toxicological mechanisms of ECs. However, the field still faces a demand for further studies on the broad spectrum of health effects, synergistic/antagonistic effects, transgenerational epigenetic effects, and epidemiologic and demographic data of ECs.

Potential Environmental and Human Health Risks Caused by Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (ARB), Antibiotic Resistance Genes (ARGs) and Emerging Contaminants (ECs) from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Landfill

“…It should be noted that the higher concentration of Al (<0.5 mg/L), Fe (<1.0 mg/L), Cu (<1 mg/L), Mg (<200 mg/L), and Zn (<5 mg/L) in the aquatic ecosystem and groundwater are potentially harmful to the human health [ 72 ] and have a prolonged association with various diseases such as cardiovascular disease (CD), cancer, Alzheimer disease (AD), Huntington disease (HD), diabetes mellitus (DM), Parkinson disease (PD), etc. [ 73 , 74 , 75 ]. Currently, various classes of antibiotics are frequently entering the environment through/via wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), hospital wastewater, the pharmaceutical industry, and landfills [ 76 ], massively polluting the overall environment.…”

Climate Change and New Challenges for Rural Communities: Particulate Matter Matters

“…Exposure to PM, from coarse PM 10 particles to nanoparticles has been associated with altered DNA methylation in vitro, in vivo, and in humans [39][40][41]. Therefore, epigenetic alterations associated with environmental exposures receive much attention as key mechanisms in the pathogenesis of exposure-associated diseases [42,43]. The first studies to recognize the role of climate change (i.e., heat) and associated epigenetic alterations in the pathogenesis of allergic and respiratory diseases have recently emerged [44].…”

Nutriepigenomics in Environmental-Associated Oxidative Stress

“…In addition, exposure to environmental arsenic is prominently related to hypomethylation in blood DNA [ 80 ]. Using a similar approach, another study showed that environmental Pb significantly decreased LINE-1 promoter gene methylation, which resulted in pathological consequences in workers from a battery plant [ 81 ]. Furthermore, tetranitromethane (TNM) exposure has been shown to cause reduced global DNA methylation while increasing ROS and malondialdehyde (MDA) [ 82 ].…”