EPIGET Lab, Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, Università Degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.
Occupational Health Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy.
Front Public Health. 2023 Jan 12;10:1083826. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1083826. eCollection 2022.
Night shift (NS) work has been associated with an increased risk of different conditions characterized by altered inflammatory and immune responses, such as cardio-metabolic and infectious diseases, cancer, and obesity. Epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation, might mirror alterations in biological processes that are influenced by NS work.
The present study was conducted on 94 healthy female workers with different working schedules and aimed at identifying whether NS was associated with plasmatic concentrations of the inflammatory proteins NLRP3 and TNF-alpha, as well as with DNA methylation levels of ten human endogenous retroviral (HERV) sequences, and nine genes selected for their role in immune and inflammatory processes. We also explored the possible role of the body mass index (BMI) as an additional susceptibility factor that might influence the effects of NS work on the tested epigenetic modifications.
We observed a positive association between NS and NLRP3 levels (-value 0.0379). Moreover, NS workers retained different methylation levels for (-value = 0.0274), (-value = 0.0377), and (-value = 0.0140) elements, and for (-value = 0.0460), (-value = 0.0422), (-value = 0.0085), and (-value = 0.0497) genes. We also observed that the BMI modified the relationship between NS and the methylation of , and elements. Overall, our results suggest that HERV methylation could pose as a promising biomolecular sensor to monitor not only the effect of NS work but also the cumulative effect of multiple stressors.
夜班（NS）工作与多种以炎症和免疫反应改变为特征的疾病有关，如心血管代谢和传染病、癌症和肥胖。表观遗传修饰，如 DNA 甲基化，可能反映了受 NS 工作影响的生物过程的变化。
本研究在 94 名具有不同工作时间表的健康女性工人中进行，旨在确定 NS 是否与炎症蛋白 NLRP3 和 TNF-α的血浆浓度以及十个人类内源性逆转录病毒（HERV）序列和九个基因的 DNA 甲基化水平有关，这些基因因在免疫和炎症过程中的作用而被选择。我们还探讨了体重指数（BMI）作为一个额外的易感因素的可能作用，它可能影响 NS 工作对测试的表观遗传修饰的影响。
我们观察到 NS 与 NLRP3 水平之间存在正相关（-值为 0.0379）。此外，NS 工人保留了不同的甲基化水平，为 （-值=0.0274）、 （-值=0.0377）和 （-值=0.0140）元件，以及 （-值=0.0460）、 （-值=0.0422）、 （-值=0.0085）和 （-值=0.0497）基因。我们还观察到 BMI 改变了 NS 与 、和 元件甲基化之间的关系。总的来说，我们的结果表明，HERV 甲基化可以作为一种有前途的生物分子传感器，不仅可以监测 NS 工作的影响，还可以监测多种应激源的累积效应。
