Transcriptome-wide analyses indicate mitochondrial responses to particulate air pollution exposure

Abstract Background Due to their lack of repair capacity mitochondria are critical targets for environmental toxicants. We studied genes and pathways reflecting mitochondrial responses to short- and medium-term PM10 exposure. Methods Whole genome gene expression was measured in peripheral blood of 98 adults (49% women). We performed linear regression analyses stratified by sex and adjusted for individual and temporal characteristics to investigate alterations in gene expression induced by short-term (week before blood sampling) and medium-term (month before blood sampling) PM10 exposure. Overrepresentation analyses (ConsensusPathDB) were performed to identify enriched mitochondrial associated pathways and gene ontology sets. Thirteen Human MitoCarta genes were measured by means of quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) along with mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) content in an independent validation cohort (n = 169, 55.6% women). Results Overrepresentation analyses revealed significant pathways (p-value