DNA Modifications: Biomarkers for the Exposome?

The concept of the exposome is the encompassing of all the environmental exposures, both exogenous and endogenous, across the life course. Many, if not all, of these exposures can result in the generation of reactive species, and/or the modulation of cellular processes, that can lead to a breadth of modifications of DNA, the nature of which may be used to infer their origin. Because of their role in cell function, such modifications have been associated with various major human diseases, including cancer, and so their assessment is crucial. Historically, most methods have been able to only measure one or a few DNA modifications at a time, limiting the information available. With the development of DNA adductomics, which aims to determine the totality of DNA modifications, a far more comprehensive picture of the DNA adduct burden can be gained. Importantly, DNA adductomics can facilitate a "top-down" investigative approach whereby patterns of adducts may be used to trace and identify the originating exposure source. This, together with other 'omic approaches, represents a major tool for unraveling the complexities of the exposome and hence allow a better a understanding of the environmental origins of disease.

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Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:MARCUS COOKE reports financial support was provided by National Institutes of Health. Chiung-Wen Hu reports financial support was provided by National Institutes of Health. Marcus Cooke reports a relationship with National Institutes of Health that includes: funding grants. Chiung-Wen Hu reports a relationship with National Institutes of Health that includes: funding grants. MSC is currently a guest editor of this special edition of for Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology, entitled "Environmental pollutants and genetic toxicity: from mechanisms to human studies" If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.