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Lin, Dorothy

University of British Columbia

Bisphenols are ubiquitously used plasticizers that pose a risk to human health due to their endocrine-disrupting properties, and prenatal exposure to bisphenols may lead to adverse birth and pregnancy outcomes. The epigenetic modification, DNA methylation (DNAm), has been studied as a possible molecular vestige of prenatal bisphenol exposure due to its sensitivity to prenatal chemical exposures and links to long-term health outcomes. Recent studies have identified that loci-specific differential DNAm may associate with prenatal bisphenol exposure; however, no studies to date have explored associations between prenatal bisphenol exposure and composite DNAm-based biomarkers, such as gestational epigenetic age acceleration (GEAA), which refers to the deviation between a DNAm-based prediction of gestational age (GA) and clinically measured GA, that has been proposed to reflect potential developmental impacts. To address this research gap, we conducted sex-stratified robust linear regression analyses between GEAA, and global DNAm proxied through LINE1 and Alu element DNAm, measured from cord blood and prenatal daily intake levels of bisphenol A (BPA), bisphenol F (BPF), and bisphenol S (BPS) in the longitudinal Barwon Infant Study (BIS) birth cohort (n = 603). No associations between estimated prenatal daily intake levels of BPA, BPS, BPF, nor their weighted sum, measured in third trimester maternal urine, and cord blood GEAA or global DNAm, were detected across sexes. Our results indicate that prenatal bisphenol exposures in the third trimester may not have a discernible impact on two biomarkers derived from dispersed cord blood DNAm — GEAA as a biomarker of fetal development, and repetitive element DNAm as a biomarker of global DNAm, at birth. This study provides clarification on molecular biomarkers that may reflect prenatal bisphenol exposure, and the study characteristics, such as the health of the study cohort and consideration of sex in study design, that may influence the study findings.

Text

2023-08-31

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85745

Medical Genetics

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/