Abstract
Background/Aims. Air pollution exposure has been associated with adverse health effects in children. Although the exact underlying mechanisms are not clarified, systemic inflammation may play a role in pollution-induced health effects. This study aimed to investigate inflammatory markers in children in relation to early-life air pollution exposure. Methods. We measured 92 inflammatory markers in plasma samples collected at ages 6 months, 1 and 2 years from healthy children residing in Stockholm, Sweden (n=108), using Olink Proteomics (Uppsala, Sweden). Residential time-weighted average (TWA) outdoor exposure to particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of <10 μm (PM10) and <2.5 μm (PM2.5), black carbon (BC), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from birth up to age 6 months was estimated by dispersion modeling. Age-specific associations between TWA air pollution exposures and inflammatory markers were investigated using linear regression with inclusion of potential confounding variables. Further, we applied linear mixed-effect models to analyze the temporal patterns of biomarkers during the first 2 years of life in relation to early-life air pollution exposure. Multiple comparisons were accounted for using False Discovery Rate (FDR 5%) adjustment. Results. At age 1 year, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and chemokine ligand 9 (CXCL9) were inversely associated with TWA exposure to NO2, NOx, and BC (FDR p-value<0.05). However, no clear association was found at ages 6 months or 2 years. In the mixed models, only TNF was associated with NO2, NOx, and BC, but the associations were not significant after adjustment for multiple testing. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that air pollution exposure during the first 6 months of life is related to certain markers of systemic inflammation in children at age 1 year. These markers may be involved in biological processes through which air pollution exposure may modulate systemic inflammation in infants.
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