Changes in DNA methylation after exposure to traffic pollution.

Air pollution has been known for a long time to have a significant detrimental effect on the health of many organisms, including humans. Airborne particulates have been linked to cardiovascular diseases, with increases in mortality in relatively short time periods after unusually high incidences of pollution. In separate research, decreases in methylation in blood DNA have been linked to forms of cardiovascular stress. It follows that there may be some observable link between these two separate observations. In this study, a group of scientists from around the world have explored the effects of short term air pollution on blood DNA methylation. There investigations include:

• Testing the effect of exposure to different particulates over periods of between 4 hours and 7 days.

• Testing the effect of seasonal and day-of-the-week variation.

• Comparing results over two different forms of DNA methylation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19136372

Robert Cope
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