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Effects of prenatal exposure to bisphenols on newborn leucocyte telomere length: a prospective birth cohort study in China

  • Challenges in Managing and Risk Assessment of Emerging Environmental Pollutants
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Abstract

Telomere length (TL) at birth is related to diseases that may arise in the future and long-term health. Bisphenols exhibit toxic effects and can cross the placenta barrier. However, the effects of prenatal exposure to bisphenols on newborn TL remain unknown. We aimed to explore the effects of prenatal exposure to bisphenols (i.e., bisphenol A [BPA], bisphenol B [BPB], bisphenol F [BPF], bisphenol S [BPS] and tetrabromobisphenol A [TBBPA]) on relative TL in newborns. A total of 801 mother–infant pairs were extracted from the Guangxi Zhuang Birth Cohort. The relationship between bisphenol levels in maternal serum and relative TL in cord blood was examined by generalized linear models and restricted cubic spline (RCS) models. After adjusting for confounders, we observed a 3.19% (95% CI: −6.08%, −0.21%; P = 0.037) reduction in relative cord blood TL among mothers ≥ 28 years old, with each onefold increase in BPS. However, in each onefold increase of TBBPA, we observed a 3.31% (95% CI: 0.67%, 6.01%; P = 0.014) increase in relative cord blood TL among mothers < 28 years old. The adjusted RCS models revealed similar results (P overall < 0.05, P non-linear > 0.05). This study was the first to establish a positive association between serum TBBPA levels and relative TL in newborns born to young mothers. However, BPS levels were inversely correlated with TL in fetus born to old mothers. The results suggested that the fetus of old pregnant women may be more sensitive to BPS exposure. Moreover, BPS exposure early in life may accelerate aging or increase the risk of developing BPS-related diseases in later life.

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Data availability

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

BPA:

Bisphenol A

BPB:

Bisphenol B

BPF:

Bisphenol F

BPS:

Bisphenol S

CI :

Confidence interval

GDM:

Gestational diabetes mellitus

GM:

Geometric mean

HDP:

Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy

IQR:

Interquartile range

LOD:

Limit of detection

PAR:

PPoly-ADP ribose polymerase

RCS:

Restricted cubic spline

RSD:

Relative standard deviations

qPCR:

Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction

SD:

Standard deviation

TBBPA:

Tetrabromobisphenol A

TL:

Telomere length

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Acknowledgements

We thank the participants for their support and all study collaborators for their contributions in the study. We would like to thank the following institutions: Debao People’s Hospital, Debao Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital, Longan People’s Hospital, Guangxi Medical University Clinical Epidemiology Research Center for Multifactorial Diseases.

Funding

This work was supported by the Guangxi Key Research Program (AB17195012) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (81860587 and 81460517).

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Author notes

  1. Jun Liang, Yantao Shao and Dongping Huang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, Guangxi, China

    Jun Liang, Chunxiu Yang, Xiaoyun Zeng, Yanye Song & Xiaoqiang Qiu

  2. The Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, Guangxi, China

    Yantao Shao

  3. Department of Sanitary Chemistry, School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, Guangxi, China

    Dongping Huang

  4. Huaihua Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Huaihua, 418000, Hunan, China

    Tao Liu

  5. Department of Child and Adolescent Health & Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, Guangxi, China

    Chunling Li & Shun Liu

  6. Department of mental health, School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, Guangxi, China

    Zhenghua Tang

  7. Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117597, Singapore

    Jennifer Tan Hui Juan

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  1. Jun Liang
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Contributions

Jun Liang: Conceptualization/design, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing-Original Draft, Visualization, Writing-Review; Yantao Shao: Methodology, Data Curation, Investigation; Formal analysis, Writing-Review & Editing; Dongping Huang: Conceptualization/design, Funding acquisition, Resources, Funding acquisition, Writing-Review & Editing, Supervision; Chunxiu Yang: Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing-Original Draft, Visualization; Xiaoyun Zeng: Investigation, Supervision, Data Curation, Writing-Review & Editing; Chunling Li: Investigation, Data Curation, Writing-Review & Editing; Zhenghua Tang: Investigation, Data Curation, Writing-Review & Editing, Shun Liu: Conceptualization/design, Methodology, Data Curation, Formal analysis, Writing - Review & Editing; Xiaoqiang Qiu: Project administration, Resources, Data Curation, Writing-Review & Editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Shun Liu or Xiaoqiang Qiu.

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Ethics approval was approved by Guangxi Medical University (No.20140305-001). All participants were required to sign informed consent.

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Liang, J., Shao, Y., Huang, D. et al. Effects of prenatal exposure to bisphenols on newborn leucocyte telomere length: a prospective birth cohort study in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 25013–25023 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14496-z

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