Associations of breast milk extracellular vesicle microRNAs with perfluoroalkyl substances in a mother-infant cohort from the Faroe Islands
Year: 2020
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Background/Aims: Early life exposures to perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) can adversely impact child health. Breast milk (BM) contains extracellular vesicles (EVs) that can transport biologically relevant cargo from mother to infant, including microRNAs (miRNAs), and may mediate in part the effect of PFAS on child health outcomes. However, the effect of PFASs on miRNA expression in BMEVS is unexplored. We therefore examined the associations between prenatal PFAS exposures and BMEV miRNA expression.Methods: We isolated EV RNA from 347 BM samples collected at two weeks post anticipated term from a Faroese birth cohort born in 1997-2000, and sequenced 2,083 miRNAs with the HTG Molecular Whole miRNA Transcriptome Assay. Major PFASs (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid [PFOS], perfluorooctanoic acid, perfluorononanoic acid, perfluorodecanoic acid, and perfluorohexanesulfonate) were measured in maternal serum at 34 weeks gestation with HPLC-MS. We ran robust negative binomial regression models to estimate associations between individual PFASs and 420 reliably expressed miRNAs. We examined effect modification by maternal pre-pregnancy overweight (i.e. a body mass index [BMI] ≥ 25 kg/m2). Models were adjusted for maternal education, age, parity, smoking during pregnancy and technical batch.Results: We identified no associations between PFASs and miRNA expression after correction for false discovery rate (FDR), however, we observed nominal associations between PFASs and 92 different miRNAs, 18 of which were associated with multiple PFASs. We observed effect modification by maternal overweight on associations between PFOS and 10 miRNAs (miR-1225-5p, miR-324-5p, miR-4534, miR-6126, miR-658, miR-6771-5p, miR-6780b-5p, miR-6800-5p, miR-6845-5p, and miR-6851-5p) (FDR <0.20). Nine of 10 miRNAs were inversely associated with PFOS in mothers with normal BMI and positively associated with PFOS in overweight mothers.Conclusions: Our findings underscore the utility of BMEV-miRNAs as promising environmental biomarkers, particularly in subpopulations of overweight individuals. Future studies are needed to elucidate the role of BMEV-miRNAs in child health following pollutant exposure.
Source: ISEE Conference Abstracts
Language: English
Subfield: Environmental Chemistry
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3166389159