Adopting mechanistic molecular biology approaches in exposome research for causal understanding: a call for action.#

Authors#

Amy L. Foreman, Benedikt Warth, Ellen V. S. Hessel, Elliott J. Price, Emma Schymanski, Gaia Cantelli, Helen Parkinson, Helge Hecht, Jana Klánová, Jelle Vlaanderen, Klara Hilscherova, Martine Vrijheid, Paolo Vineis, Rita Araujo, Robert Barouki, Roel Vermeulen, Sophie Lanone, Søren Brunak, Sylvain Sebert, Tuomo Karjalainen

Abstract#

Through investigating the combined impact of the environmental exposures experienced by an individual throughout their lifetime, exposome research provides opportunities to understand and mitigate negative health outcomes. Whilst current exposome research is driven by epidemiological studies that identify associations between exposures and effects, new frameworks integrating more substantial population-level metadata, including electronic health and administrative records, will shed further light on characterising environmental exposure risks. Of particular importance is the growing use of -omics readouts in epidemiological and clinical studies. Molecular biology offers methods and concepts to study the biological and health impacts of the exposome in experimental and computational systems. This paper calls for the adoption of mechanistic molecular biology approaches in exposome research as an essential step in understanding the genotype and exposure interactions underlying human phenotypes. We present a series of actionable recommendations to make the necessary and appropriate steps to move from exposure association to causation, with huge potential to inform precision medicine and population health. [13] This includes establishing exposome studies to inform hypothesis-driven laboratory testing supported by appropriate methods to read-across to human populations.