Abstract
The proposal of the “exposome” concept represents a shift of the research paradigm in studying exposure-disease relationships from an isolated and partial way to a systematic and agnostic approach. Nevertheless, exposome implementation is facing a variety of challenges including measurement techniques and data analysis. Here we focus on the chemical exposome, which refers to the mixtures of chemical pollutants people are exposed to from embryo onwards. We review the current chemical exposome measurement approaches with a focus on those based on the mass spectrometry. We further explore the strategies in implementing the concept of chemical exposome and discuss the available chemical exposome studies. Early progresses in the chemical exposome research are outlined, and major challenges are highlighted. In conclusion, efforts towards chemical exposome have only uncovered the tip of the iceberg, and further advancement in measurement techniques, computational tools, high-throughput data analysis, and standardization may allow more exciting discoveries concerning the role of exposome in human health and disease.
Highlights
Studies have demonstrated that environmental factors play an equal or even more significant role in the pathogenesis of human chronic diseases compared with other risk factors such as genetic variants [1,2,3,4]
Mass spectrometry based analytical techniques are widely used in biomonitoring and environmental monitoring studies and have become the predominant chemical approach in characterizing chemical exposome [9,25]
This review focuses on the analytical approaches employed in characterizing the chemical exposome, it is highly stressed that these new external exposure measurement methods are an integral part of the entire exposome measurement
Summary
Studies have demonstrated that environmental factors play an equal or even more significant role in the pathogenesis of human chronic diseases compared with other risk factors such as genetic variants [1,2,3,4]. The definition of exposome has been evolving ever since its birth Wild originally defined it as “the totality of environmental exposures from birth onwards” [5]. Later, he redefined the scope of exposome to include three broad categories of non-genetic exposure: internal (e.g., metabolism, gut microbiome, inflammation), specific external (e.g., environmental pollutants, diet, occupation), and Toxics 2019, 7, 41; doi:10.3390/toxics7030041 www.mdpi.com/journal/toxics. Exposome studies aim to accomplish two critical goals: (1) to measure the cumulative exposures throughout the entire life of humans and (2) to evaluate the associations or causal relationships between these exposures and any biological changes.
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