Sex-specific relationships between prenatal exposure to metal mixtures and birth weight in a Chinese birth cohort

Ying Wu; Fulin Zeng; Jinhui Li; Yukang Jiang; Shi Zhao; Luke D Knibbs; Xiaojun Zhang; Yiding Wang; Qianqian Zhang; Qiong Wang; Qiansheng Hu; Xiaobo Guo; Yumeng Chen; Ganxiang Cao; Jing Wang; Xingfen Yang; Xueqin Wang; Tao Liu; Bo Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.ecoenv.2023.115158

Sex-specific relationships between prenatal exposure to metal mixtures and birth weight in a Chinese birth cohort

Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 2023 Jun 20:262:115158. doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2023.115158. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Ying Wu¹, Fulin Zeng², Jinhui Li³, Yukang Jiang⁴, Shi Zhao⁵, Luke D Knibbs⁶, Xiaojun Zhang², Yiding Wang², Qianqian Zhang⁷, Qiong Wang⁷, Qiansheng Hu⁷, Xiaobo Guo⁴, Yumeng Chen⁸, Ganxiang Cao⁸, Jing Wang⁹, Xingfen Yang², Xueqin Wang¹⁰, Tao Liu¹¹, Bo Zhang¹²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
² Guangdong-Hongkong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Contaminants Exposure and Health, School of Public Health, Food Safety and Health Research Center, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Research, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
³ Department of Urology, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁴ School of Mathematics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China; Southern China Center for Statistical Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁵ JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
⁶ School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁷ School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁸ School of Public Health, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁹ Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
¹⁰ Department of Statistics and Finance/International Institute of Finance, School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
¹¹ Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China; Disease Control and Prevention Institute of Jinan University, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. Electronic address: liutao2021@jnu.edu.cn.
¹² Guangdong-Hongkong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Contaminants Exposure and Health, School of Public Health, Food Safety and Health Research Center, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Research, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. Electronic address: zhangbo2018@smu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37348214
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2023.115158

Abstract

Birth weight is an indicator linking intrauterine environmental exposures to later-life diseases, and intrauterine metal exposure may affect birth weight in a sex-specific manner. We investigated sex-specific associations between prenatal exposure to metal mixtures and birth weight in a Chinese birth cohort. The birth weight of 1296 boys and 1098 girls were recorded, and 10 metals in maternal urine samples collected during pregnancy were measured using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Bayesian Kernel Machine Regression was used to estimate the association of individual metals or metal mixtures and birth weight for gestational age (BW for GA). The model showed a sex-specific relationship between prenatal exposure to metal mixtures and BW for GA with a significant negative association in girls and a non-significant positive association in boys. Cadmium (Cd) and nickel (Ni) were positively and negatively associated with BW for GA in girls, respectively. Moreover, increasing thallium (Tl) concentration lowered the positive association between Cd and BW for GA and enhanced the negative association between Ni and BW for GA in girls. When exposure to other metals increased, the positive association with Cd diminished, whereas the negative association with Ni or Tl increased. Our findings provide evidence supporting the complex effects of intrauterine exposure to metal mixtures on the birth weight of girls and further highlight the sex heterogeneity in fetal development influenced by intrauterine environmental factors.

Keywords: Bayesian Kernel Machine Regression; Birth weight; Metal mixture; Pregnancy; Sex heterogeneity.