Chronic Exposure to Arsenic, LINE-1 Hypomethylation, and Blood Pressure: a Cross-sectional Study in Bangladesh

Overview

Journal Environ Health

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Environmental Health

Date 2017 Mar 9

PMID 28270149

Citations 21

Authors

Khaled Hossain

Takehiro Suzuki

M M Hasibuzzaman

Md Shofikul Islam

Atiqur Rahman

Sudip Kumar Paul

Tanzina Tanu

Shakhawoat Hossain

Zahangir Alam Saud

Mashiur Rahman

Farjana Nikkon

Hideki Miyataka

Seiichiro Himeno

Keiko Nohara

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Chronic exposure to arsenic is associated with cancer and hypertension. Growing evidence suggests that altered methylation in long interspersed nuclear element-1 (LINE-1) is involved in many types of disorders, including cardiovascular disease. Here we evaluated the association between arsenic exposure and LINE-1 methylation levels, especially in relation to blood pressure (BP).

Methods: A total of 236 subjects (175 from arsenic-endemic areas and 61 from a non-endemic area) in rural Bangladesh were recruited. The subjects' arsenic exposure levels (i.e., drinking water, hair and nail arsenic concentrations) were measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy. The subjects' LINE-1 methylation levels were determined by pyrosequencing.

Results: The average LINE-1 methylation levels of the subjects living in the arsenic-endemic areas were significantly (p < 0.01) lower than those of the subjects living in the non-endemic area. In a sex-stratified analysis, the arsenic exposure levels in female but not male subjects showed a significant inverse association with LINE-1 methylation levels before (water arsenic: p < 0.01, hair arsenic: p < 0.05, nail arsenic: p < 0.001) and after (water arsenic: p < 0.01, hair arsenic: p < 0.05, nail arsenic: p < 0.001) adjustment for age, body mass index and smoking. Analyses examining interactions among arsenic levels, BP and LINE-1 methylation showed that arsenic-related elevated levels of BP were associated with LINE-1 hypomethylation.

Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated that chronic exposure to arsenic was inversely associated with LINE-1 methylation levels in blood leukocyte DNA and this was more pronounced in females than males; in addition, the decreased levels of LINE-1 methylation might be involved in the arsenic-induced elevation of BP.

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