Prenatal exposure to poly-/per-fluoroalkyl substances is associated with alteration of lipid profiles in cord-blood

Lisanna Sinisalu,Jiayin Dai,Jinghua Wang,Leo W Y Yeung,Tuulia Hyötyläinen,Yitao Pan

doi:10.1007/s11306-021-01853-9

Lisanna Sinisalu, Jiayin Dai + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-021-01853-9

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Abstract

IntroductionPoly-/per-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widespread environmental pollutants that may induce metabolic perturbations in humans, including particularly alterations in lipid profiles. Prenatal exposure to PFAS can cause lasting effects on offspring metabolic health, however, the underlying mechanisms are still unknown.ObjectivesThe goal of the study was to investigate the impact of prenatal PFAS exposure on the lipid profiles in cord blood.MethodsHerein, we combined determination of bile acids (BAs) and molecular lipids by liquid chromatography with ultra-high-resolution mass spectrometry, and separately quantified cord blood concentrations of sixteen PFAS in a cohort of Chinese infants (104 subjects) in a cross-sectional study. We then evaluated associations between PFAS concentration and lipidome using partial correlation network analysis, debiased sparse partial correlation, linear regression analysis and correlation analysis.ResultsPFAS levels showed significant associations with the lipid profiles; specifically, PFAS exposure was positively correlated with triacylgycerols (TG) and several bile acids. Importantly, exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) were associated with increased levels of TGs with saturated fatty acids while multiple classes of phospholipids were decreased. In addition, several free fatty acids showed significant positive correlations with PFOS.ConclusionsOur results indicated that prenatal exposure to PFAS mediated metabolic changes, which may explain the associations reported between PFAS exposure and metabolic health later in life.

Highlights

Poly-/per-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widespread environmental pollutants that may induce metabolic perturbations in humans, including alterations in lipid profiles
PFAS results in this study with < LOD values have been replaced with LOQ × 0.5
General linear regression model was used to analyze the associations between PFAS compounds and metabolites, with all the models were adjusted for maternal age, delivery type and birth weight as these factors showed association with the PFAS concentrations

Summary

Introduction

Poly-/per-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widespread environmental pollutants that may induce metabolic perturbations in humans, including alterations in lipid profiles. Objectives The goal of the study was to investigate the impact of prenatal PFAS exposure on the lipid profiles in cord blood. Results PFAS levels showed significant associations with the lipid profiles; PFAS exposure was positively correlated with triacylgycerols (TG) and several bile acids. We have previously shown that prenatal and early life PFAS exposure is associated with changes in lipid profiles, in specific phospholipids and triglycerides (McGlinchey et al, 2019; Salihović et al, 2019), suggesting that the lipid changes may be modulated via changes in bile acids (Zhao et al, 2016). PFAS are using the same transporter system that transports the BAs from the portal vein back to liver (Zhao et al, 2015)

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