Long-term outdoor air pollution and DNA methylation in circulating monocytes: results from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)

BACKGROUND: DNA methylation may mediate effects of air pollution on cardiovascular disease. The association between long-term air pollution exposure and DNA methylation in monocytes, which are central to atherosclerosis, has not been studied. We investigated the association between long-term ambient air pollution exposure and DNA methylation (candidate sites and global) in monocytes of adults (aged ≥55). METHODS: One-year average ambient fine particulate matter (PM(2.5)) and oxides of nitrogen (NO(X)) concentrations were predicted at participants’ (n = 1,207) addresses using spatiotemporal models. We assessed DNA methylation in circulating monocytes at 1) 2,713 CpG sites associated with mRNA expression of nearby genes and 2) probes mapping to Alu and LINE-1 repetitive elements (surrogates for global DNA methylation) using Illumina’s Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. We used linear regression models adjusted for demographics, smoking, physical activity, socioeconomic status, methyl-nutrients, and technical variables. For significant air pollution-associated methylation sites, we also assessed the association between expression of gene transcripts previously associated with these CpG sites and air pollution. RESULTS: At a false discovery rate of 0.05, five candidate CpGs (cg20455854, cg07855639, cg07598385, cg17360854, and cg23599683) had methylation significantly associated with PM(2.5) and none were associated with NO(X). Cg20455854 had the smallest p-value for the association with PM(2.5) (p = 2.77 × 10(−5)). mRNA expression profiles of genes near three of the PM(2.5)-associated CpGs (ANKHD1, LGALS2, and ANKRD11) were also significantly associated with PM(2.5) exposure. Alu and LINE-1 methylation were not associated with long-term air pollution exposure. CONCLUSIONS: We observed novel associations between long-term ambient air pollution exposure and site-specific DNA methylation, but not global DNA methylation, in purified monocytes of a multi-ethnic adult population. Epigenetic markers may provide insights into mechanisms underlying environmental factors in complex diseases like atherosclerosis. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12940-016-0202-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.