Using Molecular -Omics in Environmental Epidemiology to Gain Unique Insights into Environmental Health

摘要

The incorporation of molecular -omics data into environmental epidemiology allows environmental health researchers to answer novel questions about how our environment influences health and disease. Although molecular data have been consistently utilized in experimental biological research, the the rapid growth and development of -omics technologies is making genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and microbiomics increasingly accessible to epidemiologic research. These technologies allow for the interrogation of hundreds of thousands to millions of molecular features in a highly reproducible and cost-effective fashion in human samples, and the incorporation of these tools into environmental epidemiology has enabled the field to investigate how the environment impacts human health in novel ways. In turn, these features can form useful biomarkers of exposure-response relationships, inform us about toxic mechanisms and modes of action, and contribute to causal reasoning. However, incorporating these types of data into epidemiologic research comes with many challenges, including having to consider tissue-specific responses to stressors, dealing with technical artifacts, how and whether to adjust for tissue heterogeneity, and limiting the possibility of false positives while allowing for the discovery of true positive findings. I will present an overview what genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and microbiomics can add to environmental health research, and recent advancements in the field to deal with the potential challenges of doing so.