The mediating effect of immune markers on the association between ambient air pollution and adult-onset asthma

Nahid Mostafavi; Ayoung Jeong; Jelle Vlaanderen; Medea Imboden; Paolo Vineis; Debbie Jarvis; Manolis Kogevinas; Nicole Probst-Hensch; Roel Vermeulen

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-45327-4

The mediating effect of immune markers on the association between ambient air pollution and adult-onset asthma

Nahid Mostafavi, Ayoung Jeong, Jelle Vlaanderen, Medea Imboden, Paolo Vineis, Debbie Jarvis, Manolis Kogevinas, Nicole Probst-Hensch, Roel Vermeulen^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We aim to investigate to what extent a set of immune markers mediate the association between air pollution and adult-onset asthma. We considered long-term exposure to multiple air pollution markers and a panel of 13 immune markers in peripheral blood samples collected from 140 adult cases and 199 controls using a nested-case control design. We tested associations between air pollutants and immune markers and adult-onset asthma using mixed-effects (logistic) regression models, adjusted for confounding variables. In order to evaluate a possible mediating effect of the full set of immune markers, we modelled the relationship between asthma and air pollution with a partial least square path model. We observed a strong positive association of IL-1RA [OR 1.37; 95% CI (1.09, 1.73)] with adult-onset asthma. Univariate models did not yield any association between air pollution and immune markers. However, mediation analyses indicated that 15% of the effect of air pollution on risk of adult-onset asthma was mediated through the immune system when considering all immune markers as a latent variable (path coefficient (β) = 0.09; 95% CI: (−0.02, 0.20)). This effect appeared to be stronger for allergic asthma (22%; β = 0.12; 95% CI: (−0.03, 0.27)) and overweight subjects (27%; β = 0.19; 95% CI: (−0.004, 0.38)). Our results provides supportive evidence for a mediating effect of the immune system in the association between air pollution and adult-onset asthma.

Original language	English
Article number	8818
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	9
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45327-4
Publication status	Published - 1 Dec 2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007e2011) under Grant Agreement Number: 308610 (Exposomics). The SAPALDIA cohort and biobank is funded by Swiss National Science Foundation Grant Number: 33CS30-148470/1&2 to NPH. The authors thank George Downward for language editing of this manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).

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title = "The mediating effect of immune markers on the association between ambient air pollution and adult-onset asthma",

abstract = "We aim to investigate to what extent a set of immune markers mediate the association between air pollution and adult-onset asthma. We considered long-term exposure to multiple air pollution markers and a panel of 13 immune markers in peripheral blood samples collected from 140 adult cases and 199 controls using a nested-case control design. We tested associations between air pollutants and immune markers and adult-onset asthma using mixed-effects (logistic) regression models, adjusted for confounding variables. In order to evaluate a possible mediating effect of the full set of immune markers, we modelled the relationship between asthma and air pollution with a partial least square path model. We observed a strong positive association of IL-1RA [OR 1.37; 95% CI (1.09, 1.73)] with adult-onset asthma. Univariate models did not yield any association between air pollution and immune markers. However, mediation analyses indicated that 15% of the effect of air pollution on risk of adult-onset asthma was mediated through the immune system when considering all immune markers as a latent variable (path coefficient (β) = 0.09; 95% CI: (−0.02, 0.20)). This effect appeared to be stronger for allergic asthma (22%; β = 0.12; 95% CI: (−0.03, 0.27)) and overweight subjects (27%; β = 0.19; 95% CI: (−0.004, 0.38)). Our results provides supportive evidence for a mediating effect of the immune system in the association between air pollution and adult-onset asthma.",

author = "Nahid Mostafavi and Ayoung Jeong and Jelle Vlaanderen and Medea Imboden and Paolo Vineis and Debbie Jarvis and Manolis Kogevinas and Nicole Probst-Hensch and Roel Vermeulen",

note = "Funding Information: This research has received funding from the European Community{\textquoteright}s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007e2011) under Grant Agreement Number: 308610 (Exposomics). The SAPALDIA cohort and biobank is funded by Swiss National Science Foundation Grant Number: 33CS30-148470/1&2 to NPH. The authors thank George Downward for language editing of this manuscript. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019, The Author(s).",

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AU - Jeong, Ayoung

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AU - Vineis, Paolo

AU - Jarvis, Debbie

AU - Kogevinas, Manolis

AU - Probst-Hensch, Nicole

AU - Vermeulen, Roel

N1 - Funding Information: This research has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007e2011) under Grant Agreement Number: 308610 (Exposomics). The SAPALDIA cohort and biobank is funded by Swiss National Science Foundation Grant Number: 33CS30-148470/1&2 to NPH. The authors thank George Downward for language editing of this manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © 2019, The Author(s).

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N2 - We aim to investigate to what extent a set of immune markers mediate the association between air pollution and adult-onset asthma. We considered long-term exposure to multiple air pollution markers and a panel of 13 immune markers in peripheral blood samples collected from 140 adult cases and 199 controls using a nested-case control design. We tested associations between air pollutants and immune markers and adult-onset asthma using mixed-effects (logistic) regression models, adjusted for confounding variables. In order to evaluate a possible mediating effect of the full set of immune markers, we modelled the relationship between asthma and air pollution with a partial least square path model. We observed a strong positive association of IL-1RA [OR 1.37; 95% CI (1.09, 1.73)] with adult-onset asthma. Univariate models did not yield any association between air pollution and immune markers. However, mediation analyses indicated that 15% of the effect of air pollution on risk of adult-onset asthma was mediated through the immune system when considering all immune markers as a latent variable (path coefficient (β) = 0.09; 95% CI: (−0.02, 0.20)). This effect appeared to be stronger for allergic asthma (22%; β = 0.12; 95% CI: (−0.03, 0.27)) and overweight subjects (27%; β = 0.19; 95% CI: (−0.004, 0.38)). Our results provides supportive evidence for a mediating effect of the immune system in the association between air pollution and adult-onset asthma.

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ER -

The mediating effect of immune markers on the association between ambient air pollution and adult-onset asthma

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