ArticleBMC medicine2020
In utero and childhood exposure to tobacco smoke and multi-layer molecular signatures in children.
Article in BMC medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy on child blood pressure in a European cohort.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Update of the human early life exposome (HELIX) cohort: a European population-based exposome cohort-cohort profile.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Mechanisms and therapeutic strategies of asthma: from bench to bedside.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2026Review
- DNA methylation as a biomarker of prenatal exposures: current challenges and opportunities.Environmental epigenetics · 2026Review
- Associations of family affluence with cortisol production and telomere length in European children.EBioMedicine · 2025Article
- Prenatal cannabis exposure is associated with alterations in offspring DNA methylation at genes involved in neurodevelopment, across the life course.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Genetic and Epigenetic Alterations Associated With Human Prenatal Tobacco and Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure: Protocol for a Systematic Evidence Map.Public health reviews · 2025Review
- Association of exposure to second-hand smoke during childhood with blood DNA methylation.Environment international · 2025Article
- Epigenome-wide association study of fluoride exposure during early adolescence and DNA methylation among U.S. children.The Science of the total environment · 2024Article
- Metabolic profiling of smoking, associations with type 2 diabetes and interaction with genetic susceptibility.European journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance of Cardiovascular Diseases: A Network Medicine Perspective.Maternal and child health journal · 2024Review
- Linking Prenatal Environmental Exposures to Lifetime Health with Epigenome-Wide Association Studies: State-of-the-Science Review and Future Recommendations.Environmental health perspectives · 2023Review
- Blood miRNA levels associated with ADHD traits in children across six European birth cohorts.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- Article
- Influence of perinatal and childhood exposure to tobacco and mercury in children's gut microbiota.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Genome-wide distribution of histone trimethylation reveals a global impact of bisphenol A on telomeric binding proteins and histone acetyltransferase factors: a pilot study with human and in vitro data.Clinical epigenetics · 2022Article
- Multi-omics signatures of the human early life exposome.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Prenatal Maternal Smoke, DNA Methylation, and Multi-omics of Tissues and Child Health.Current environmental health reports · 2022Review
- Study of the Combined Effect of Maternal Tobacco Smoking and Polygenic Risk Scores on Birth Weight and Body Mass Index in Childhood.Frontiers in genetics · 2022Article
- Advancing tools for human early lifecourse exposome research and translation (ATHLETE): Project overview.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
30 authors at 14 institutions in 7 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe adverse health effects of early life exposure to tobacco smoking have been widely reported. In spite of this, the underlying molecular mechanisms of in utero and postnatal exposure to tobacco smoke are only partially understood. Here, we aimed to identify multi-layer molecular signatures associated with exposure to tobacco smoke in these two exposure windows.
methodsWe investigated the associations of maternal smoking during pregnancy and childhood secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure with molecular features measured in 1203 European children (mean age 8.1 years) from the Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) project. Molecular features, covering 4 layers, included blood DNA methylation and gene and miRNA transcription, plasma proteins, and sera and urinary metabolites.
resultsMaternal smoking during pregnancy was associated with DNA methylation changes at 18 loci in child blood. DNA methylation at 5 of these loci was related to expression of the nearby genes. However, the expression of these genes themselves was only weakly associated with maternal smoking. Conversely, childhood SHS was not associated with blood DNA methylation or transcription patterns, but with reduced levels of several serum metabolites and with increased plasma PAI1 (plasminogen activator inhibitor-1), a protein that inhibits fibrinolysis. Some of the in utero and childhood smoking-related molecular marks showed dose-response trends, with stronger effects with higher dose or longer duration of the exposure.
conclusionIn this first study covering multi-layer molecular features, pregnancy and childhood exposure to tobacco smoke were associated with distinct molecular phenotypes in children. The persistent and dose-dependent changes in the methylome make CpGs good candidates to develop biomarkers of past exposure. Moreover, compared to methylation, the weak association of maternal smoking in pregnancy with gene expression suggests different reversal rates and a methylation-based memory to past exposures. Finally, certain metabolites and protein markers evidenced potential early biological effects of postnatal SHS, such as fibrinolysis.
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