Pooling samples for “top-down” molecular exposomics research: the methodology

Environmental Health

Methodology

Jianwen She¹  Hagen Scherb²  Kristina Voigt²  Karl-Werner Schramm³  Heqing Shen⁴  Siyuan Peng⁴  Weipan Xu⁴  Ambreen Alamdar⁴ 

[1] Environmental Health Laboratory Branch, California Department of Public Health, 94804, Richmond, CA, USA;Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Institute of Computational Biology, Ingolstädter, Landstr. 1, 85765, Neuherberg, Germany;Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Molecular EXposomics (MEX), Ingolstädter, Landstr. 1, 85764, Neuherberg, Germany;Department für Biowissenschaftliche Grundlagen, Technische Universität München, Weihenstephaner Steig 23, 85350, Freising, Germany;Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1799 Jimei Road, 361021, Xiamen, PR, China;

关键词: Exposome;    Exposure biomarker;    Metabolome;    Effect biomarker;    Case-control study;    Environmental pollutants;    Pooled sample;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-069X-13-8

 received in 2013-06-17, accepted in 2014-01-28,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundExposomics is the cutting-edge concept of screening the environmental risk factors for disease. In the novel “top-down” approach, we estimate the molecular exposome by measuring all body fluid analytes in a case-controlled study. However, to detect diverse pollutants, a sufficient sample size and multiple analytical methods are required. This may lead to dramatically increased costs and research workload.MethodsTo help reduce complexity, we suggest a sample pooling strategy along with a scheme for combining both general unknown or multi-targeted screening with targeted analysis. The sample pooling method was tested using computer simulations.ResultsBy comprehensively analysis of pooled samples, it is possible to identify environmental risk factors. Factors are initially screened in the pooled case and control population samples, then in the randomized grouped and pooled case and control subpopulation samples. In the sample grouping, five or more pools were suggested for groups having 30 individuals per pool.ConclusionsThis study suggests that sample pooling is a useful strategy for exposomics research, which provides a hypothesis-free method for pollutant risk screening.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Shen et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014