Association between night shift work and methylation of a subset of immune-related genes

Abstract

IntroductionNight 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.MethodsThe 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.Results and discussionWe observed a positive association between NS and NLRP3 levels (p-value 0.0379). Moreover, NS workers retained different methylation levels for ERVFRD-1 (p-value = 0.0274), HERV-L (p-value = 0.0377), and HERV-P (p-value = 0.0140) elements, and for BIRC2 (p-value = 0.0460), FLRT3 (p-value = 0.0422), MIG6 (p-value = 0.0085), and SIRT1 (p-value = 0.0497) genes. We also observed that the BMI modified the relationship between NS and the methylation of ERVE, HERV-L, and ERVW-1 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.

Methylation in cornea and corneal diseases: a systematic review

“…The methylation process can be influenced by various factors, including genetics, individual characteristics, and environmental influences such as aflatoxin B1 and air pollution. While genetic factors are known to affect susceptibility, non-genetic risk factors like DNA methylation modifications, histone modifications, and inflammatory risk factors are also gaining attention in this regard [144][145][146][147]. Methylation levels in tissues are variable and dynamic [148,149], with a balance between establishing and eliminating methylation [33], which is mediated by methyltransferases and demethylases [150] (Fig.…”