HETEROGENEOUS OZONE EFFECTS ON DNA METHYLOME OF BRONCHIAL CELLS: OBSERVED IN A CROSSOVER STUDY

We used a randomized crossover experiment to estimate the effects of ozone (vs. clean air) exposure on genome-wide DNA methylation of target bronchial epithelial cells, using 17 volunteers, each randomly exposed on two separated occasions to clean air or 0.3-ppm ozone for two hours. Twenty-four hours after exposure, participants underwent bronchoscopy to collect epithelial cells whose DNA methylation was measured using the Illumina 450 K platform. We performed global and regional tests examining the ozone versus clean air effect on the DNA methylome and calculated Fisher-exact p-values for a series of univariate tests. We found little evidence of an overall effect of ozone on the DNA methylome but some suggestive changes in PLSCR1, HCAR1, and LINC00336 DNA methylation after ozone exposure relative to clean air. We observed some participant-to-participant heterogeneity in ozone responses.

Impact/Purpose

This product describes a case-crossover study done from a controlled human exposure assessment to ozone which evaluated changes in the blood epigenome which were associated with short-term exposure to ozone. A few changes were noted, which were heterogeneous across individuals but did see some concordance in regional and pathway analyses.

Citation

Bind, M., D. Rubin, A. Cardenas, R. Dhingra, C. Ward-Caviness, Z. Liu, J. Mirowsky, J. Schwartz, B. Coull, D. Diazsanchez, AND R. Devlin. HETEROGENEOUS OZONE EFFECTS ON DNA METHYLOME OF BRONCHIAL CELLS: OBSERVED IN A CROSSOVER STUDY. Nature Publishing Group, London, UK, 10(1):15739, (2020). [DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-72068-6]

DOI: HETEROGENEOUS OZONE EFFECTS ON DNA METHYLOME OF BRONCHIAL CELLS: OBSERVED IN A CROSSOVER STUDY