Final Report Summary - ENEPIA (ENvironment, EPigenetics and the Initiation of Allergic asthma)
Allergic disease is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory disease with an enormous increase in impact on health and well-being with an economic burden of approximately €25 billion per year in health care costs in Europe. Although groundbreaking epidemiology has established a connection between the environment and high prevalence of allergic disease, the mechanisms explaining how environmental factors influence the onset of allergic disease remain unclear but are recently attributed to epigenetic changes. The main objective of ENEPIA was to devise a strategy to investigate epigenetic changes linked to environmental factors in allergic asthma in an experimental mouse model. We focused on whether parental allergic asthma would affect the susceptibility and severity of allergy in the offspring. Allergic and healthy (non-allergic) female and male mice mated in each combination. The offspring were then examined for their response to the same allergens that the parents were allergic to. Our results indicate that there is a prominent influence of parental allergy on the offspring, which is dominated by the mother. The offspring from allergic mothers developed more severe allergic asthma compared to those from healthy mothers no matter whether the father was allergic or healthy. Allergy in the father had little influence on allergic disease in the offspring. These results demonstrate a maternal epigenetic influence on allergic asthma in offspring. The findings from these experiments are expected to lead to a new understanding of the interaction between the maternal environment and susceptibility of children to allergic disease. These results may have significant clinical implications on environmental exposure during pregnancy and ultimately may identify planned parenting strategies to prevent allergic disease in high-risk children. These data will have impact on the development of new approaches to potentially prevent allergic disease onset. Prevention of allergic disease will lead to reduced health care costs and increased well-being of future generations.