Metabolic Effects of Air Pollution Exposure and Reversibility

In this study, we modeled early life air pollution exposure using C57BL/6J male mice on a controlled chow diet, exposed to real-world inhaled concentrated PM2.5(~10x ambient level/ ~60-120ug/m3) or filtered air (FA) over 14 weeks.We investigated PM2.5 effects on phenotype, transcriptome and chromatin accessibility, compared the effects with a prototypical high-fat diet (HFD) stimulus, and examined the effects of cessation of exposure on reversibility of phenotype/genotype. RNA sequencing and ATAC-seq were performed to compare the transcriptome and epigenome of air pollution exposed mice and high-fat diet.本研究以喂食标准化控制饲料的C57BL/6J雄性小鼠为模型，构建早期生命阶段空气污染暴露的实验体系：将小鼠暴露于真实环境浓缩吸入型PM2.5（浓度约为环境水平的10倍，即60~120μg/m³）或过滤空气（Filtered Air, FA），暴露周期为14周。本研究探究了PM2.5对小鼠表型、转录组及染色质可及性的影响；将该效应与典型高脂饮食（High-Fat Diet, HFD）刺激的效应进行对比，并考察了暴露终止后表型与基因型改变的可逆性。本研究采用RNA测序（RNA sequencing）与ATAC-seq（Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin using sequencing），对空气污染暴露小鼠与高脂饮食小鼠的转录组及表观基因组开展比较分析。