Background: The first year of life represents a dynamic immune development period that impacts the risk of developing respiratory-related diseases, including asthma, recurrent infections, and eczema. However, the role of immune-mediating proteins in childhood respiratory diseases is not well characterized in early life.
Methods: We applied weighted gene correlation network analysis (WGCNA) to derive modules of highly correlated proteins during early life immune development using plasma samples collected from children at age 1 year (N=294) in the Vitamin D Antenatal Asthma Reduction Trial (VDAART).
Despite the high prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders, the influence of maternal diet during pregnancy on child neurodevelopment remains understudied. Here we show that a western dietary pattern during pregnancy is associated with child neurodevelopmental disorders. We analyse self-reported maternal dietary patterns at 24 weeks of pregnancy and clinically evaluated neurodevelopmental disorders at 10 years of age in the COPSAC2010 cohort (n = 508).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRationale: Pediatric asthma is heterogeneous, with varied clinical presentations and treatment responses. Metabolomic profiling may uncover shared and unique biological mechanisms across clinical traits that characterize pediatric asthma.
Objectives: To characterize the varied clinical presentation of pediatric asthma by examining the metabolome's relationship with 22 clinical traits, categorized into 5 phenotypic domains: airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR), atopy, lung function (LF), blood eosinophil (B-EOS), and blood neutrophil (B-NEU).
The promise of integrating Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and genetic data for precision medicine has largely fallen short due to its omission of environmental context over time. Post-genomic data can bridge this gap by capturing the real-time dynamic relationship between underlying genetics and the environment. This perspective highlights the pivotal role of integrating EMR and post-genomics for personalized health, reflecting on lessons from past efforts, and outlining a roadmap of challenges and opportunities that must be addressed to realize the potential of precision medicine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There are important inter-relationships between miRNAs and metabolites: alterations in miRNA expression can be induced by various metabolic stimuli, and miRNAs play a regulatory role in numerous cellular processes, impacting metabolism. While both specific miRNAs and metabolites have been identified for their role in childhood asthma, there has been no global assessment of the combined effect of miRNAs and the metabolome in childhood asthma.
Methods: We performed miRNAome-metabolome-wide association studies ('miR-metabo-WAS') in two childhood cohorts of asthma to evaluate the contemporaneous and persistent miRNA-metabolite associations: 1) Genetic Epidemiology of Asthma in Costa Rica Study (GACRS) (N = 1121); 2) the Childhood Asthma Management Program (CAMP) (N = 312 and N = 454).
The lack of accurate, cost-effective, and clinically relevant biomarkers remains a major barrier to incorporating omic data into clinical practice. Previous studies have shown that DNA methylation algorithms have utility as surrogate measures for selected proteins and metabolites. We expand upon this work by creating DNAm surrogates, termed epigenetic biomarker proxies (EBPs), across clinical laboratories, the metabolome, and the proteome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Schizophrenia is associated with increased age-related morbidity, mortality, and frailty, which are not entirely explained by behavioral factors. Prior studies using epigenetic clocks have suggested that schizophrenia is associated with accelerated aging, however these studies have primarily used unidimensional clocks that summarize aging as a single "biological age" score.
Objective: This meta-analysis uses multidimensional epigenetic clocks that split aging into multiple scores to analyze biological aging in schizophrenia.
Background: The immunometabolic mechanisms underlying variable responses to oral immunotherapy (OIT) in patients with IgE-mediated food allergy are unknown.
Objective: To identify novel pathways associated with tolerance in food allergy, we used metabolomic profiling to find pathways important for food allergy in multiethnic cohorts and responses to OIT.
Methods: Untargeted plasma metabolomics data were generated from the VDAART healthy infant cohort (N = 384), a Costa Rican cohort of children with asthma (N = 1040), and a peanut OIT trial (N = 20) evaluating sustained unresponsiveness (SU, protection that lasts after therapy) versus transient desensitization (TD, protection that ends immediately afterward).
The aging process involves numerous molecular changes that lead to functional decline and increased disease and mortality risk. While epigenetic aging clocks have shown accuracy in predicting biological age, they typically provide single estimates for the samples and lack mechanistic insights. In this study, we challenge the paradigm that aging can be sufficiently described with a single biological age estimate.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground & Aims: Although vitamin D deficiency is common in critically ill patients, randomized controlled trials fail to demonstrate benefits of supplementation. We aimed to identify distinct vitamin D responsive metabolic phenotypes prior to trial intervention of high-dose vitamin D by applying machine learning clustering method to metabolomics data from the Correction of Vitamin D Deficiency in Critically Ill Patients (VITdAL-ICU) trial.
Methods: In the randomized, placebo-controlled VITdAL-ICU trial, critically ill adults received placebo or high-dose vitamin D.
Importance: Eicosanoids have a pathophysiological role in atopic dermatitis (AD), but it is unknown whether this is affected by prenatal ω-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 LCPUFA; ie, fish oil) supplementation and genetic variations in the cyclooxygenase-1 (COX1) pathway.
Objective: To explore the association of n-3 LCPUFA supplementation during pregnancy with risk of childhood AD overall and by maternal COX1 genotype.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This prespecified secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial included mother-child pairs from the Danish Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood 2010 birth cohort, with prospective follow-up until children were aged 10 years.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of synthetic, highly fluorinated aliphatic compounds, commonly utilised in a wide variety of consumer products with diverse applications. Since the genesis of these compounds, a growing body of evidence has demonstrated adverse health effects associated with PFAS exposure. In a racially diverse cohort of 459 pregnant mothers, demographically weighted towards minority representation (black 44.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Bilirubin has antioxidant properties, and elevated levels within the normal range have been associated with improved lung function and decreased risk of asthma in adults, but studies of young children are scarce. Here, we investigate associations between bilirubin in early life and respiratory health endpoints during preschool age in two independent birth cohorts.
Methods: Bilirubin metabolites were assessed at ages 0.
Background: Infections in childhood remain a leading global cause of child mortality and environmental exposures seem crucial. We investigated whether urbanicity at birth was associated with the risk of infections and explored underlying mechanisms.
Methods: Children (n=633) from the COPSAC mother-child cohort were monitored daily with symptom diaries of infection episodes during the first 3 years and prospectively diagnosed with asthma until age 6 years.
Background: There is limited evidence on biomarkers associated with response to the monoclonal antibodies currently approved for asthma treatment. We sought to identify circulatory metabolites associated with response to treatment with mepolizumab or omalizumab.
Methods: We conducted global metabolomic profiling of pre-treatment plasma samples from 100 patients with moderate-to-severe asthma who initiated mepolizumab (n=31) or omalizumab (n=69).
Neurodevelopmental disorders are rapidly increasing in prevalence and have been linked to various environmental risk factors. Mounting evidence suggests a potential role of vitamin D in child neurodevelopment, though the causal mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here, we investigate how vitamin D deficiency affects children's communication development, particularly in relation to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Infants with frequent viral and bacterial respiratory infections exhibit compromised immunity to routine immunizations. They are also more likely to develop chronic respiratory diseases in later childhood. This study investigated the feasibility of epigenetic profiling to reveal endotype-specific molecular pathways with potential for early identification and immuno-modulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The immunometabolic mechanisms underlying variable responses to oral immunotherapy (OIT) in patients with IgE-mediated food allergy are unknown.
Objective: To identify novel pathways associated with tolerance in food allergy, we used metabolomic profiling to find pathways important for food allergy in multi-ethnic cohorts and responses to OIT.
Methods: Untargeted plasma metabolomics data were generated from the VDAART healthy infant cohort (N=384), a Costa Rican cohort of children with asthma (N=1040), and a peanut OIT trial (N=20) evaluating sustained unresponsiveness (SU, protection that lasts after therapy) versus transient desensitization (TD, protection that ends immediately afterwards).