Exposure to arsenic at different life-stages and DNA methylation meta-analysis in buccal cells and leukocytes

Table 1 Participant characteristics

	Chile study, PBMCs (N = 40) ^a		Chile study, buccal cells (N = 39) ^a		Bangladesh study, 450 K (N = 48) ^b		Bangladesh study, 850 K (N = 32) ^b
	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
Age, years, mean (SD)	48.7	(4.7)	48.7	(4.7)	39.7	(8.1)	41.7	(6.3)
Male	21	52.5	20	51.3	48	100.0%	32	100.0%
Ever smoker	16	40.0	16	41.0	21	43.8%	20	62.5%
Prenatal/early-life arsenic exposure	20	50.0	19	48.7	–	–	–	–
High arsenic exposure ^c	–	–	–	–	23	47.9%	11	34.4%

^a DNAm analysis of PBMC and buccal cell samples performed among the same study participants. ^b DNAm analyses in Bangladesh studies conducted in PBMCs. ^c Cutoff of ≥ 100 μg/L water arsenic used to classify arsenic exposure for 450K analyses (low exposure median, range, and IQR: 57.0 μg/L; 50.0–100.0 μg/L; 51.5, 72.9 μg/L; high exposure median, range, and IQR: 249.7 μg/L; 160.0–500.0 μg/L; 173.5, 253.5 μg/L) and 104 μg/L water arsenic used to classify arsenic exposure for 850K analyses (low exposure median, range, and IQR: 94.0 μg/L; 50.0–104.0 μg/L; 67.0, 100.0 μg/L; high exposure median, range, and IQR: 250.0 μg/L; 112.0–500.0 μg/L; 143.0, 363.5 μg/L)

ISSN: 1476-069X