Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin 300070, China; Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environment, Nutrition and Public Health, School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin 300070, China.
Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Sep 20;892:164761. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164761. Epub 2023 Jun 12.
Environmental arsenic (As) exposure has been associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) risk. Our recent study found that GDM was positively associated with urinary As level while negatively correlated to As. However, the mechanisms underlying the association between arsenic species and GDM remain largely unknown. In the present study, through the measurement of urinary arsenic species and metabolome analysis in 399 pregnant women, we aimed to identify the metabolic biomarkers that may link arsenic exposure to GDM based on a novel systems epidemiology strategy termed meet-in-metabolite-analysis (MIMA). The metabolomics analysis revealed that 20 and 16 urinary metabolites were relevant to arsenic exposure and GDM, respectively. Among them, 12 metabolites were identified to be both arsenic- and GDM-related, which are mainly involved in purine metabolism, one‑carbon metabolism (OCM) and glycometabolism. Moreover, it was further showed that the regulation of thiosulfate (AOR: 2.52; 95 % CI: 1.33, 4.77) and phosphoroselenoic acid (AOR: 2.35; 95 % CI: 1.31, 4.22) could significantly contribute to the negative association between As and GDM. Considering the biological functions of these metabolites, it is suggested that As may reduce GDM risk by disturbing OCM in the pregnant women. These data will provide novel insights into the mechanism of action of environmental arsenic exposure on GDM incidence from the aspect of metabolism disorder.
环境砷（As）暴露与妊娠糖尿病（GDM）风险有关。我们最近的研究发现，GDM 与尿砷水平呈正相关，而与砷呈负相关。然而，砷形态与 GDM 之间关联的机制在很大程度上仍不清楚。在本研究中，通过对 399 名孕妇的尿砷形态和代谢组学分析，我们旨在基于一种新的系统流行病学策略——代谢物相遇分析（MIMA），确定可能将砷暴露与 GDM 联系起来的代谢生物标志物。代谢组学分析显示，有 20 种和 16 种尿代谢物分别与砷暴露和 GDM 相关。其中，有 12 种代谢物被鉴定为砷和 GDM 相关，主要涉及嘌呤代谢、一碳代谢（OCM）和糖代谢。此外，进一步表明，硫代硫酸（AOR：2.52；95%CI：1.33，4.77）和亚磷酸硒酸（AOR：2.35；95%CI：1.31，4.22）的调节可能显著有助于砷与 GDM 之间的负相关。考虑到这些代谢物的生物学功能，表明砷可能通过扰乱孕妇的 OCM 来降低 GDM 的风险。这些数据将从代谢紊乱的角度为环境砷暴露对 GDM 发病率的作用机制提供新的见解。
