Project

PeriContALL: Integrative analysis of Perinatal exposure to food Contaminants and its association with ALLergy in childhood

Published on 5 August 2026

Context

PeriContALL aims to assess dietary exposure to contaminants during pregnancy and the first year of life, to identify biomarkers of this exposure in non-invasive matrices, and then to evaluate the association between these exposures and the development of allergic and respiratory symptoms in childhood. This work is based on data and samples (milk and first stools) collected within French birth cohorts (EDEN and ELFE). More mechanistic studies, allowing the establishment of causal links for the observed associations, are planned at the end of the project.

Résults

Exposure data show that a person is exposed to multiple contaminants at the same time: these substances have therefore been grouped into mixtures. Among them, a mixture mainly composed of furans, trace elements, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with identified in both pregnancy and infancy. Dietary exposure to this mixture during pregnancy and the first year of life appears to be linked to a higher risque of allergic and respiratory diseases in childhood.

In parallel, we used techniques to detect the tens of thousands of small chemical molecules present in various perinatal matrices. Complex bioinformatics tools were developed to identify, among all this data, markers of exposure to contaminants.

Finally, among the contaminants we found associated with allergy, we selected five compounds of interest and tested them in an animal model of pre- and perinatal exposure. Our results show that these exposures impact the development of the immune system and that some compounds significantly worsen allergic asthma.

 

Perspectives

PeriContALL has highlighted associations between pre- or perinatal dietary exposures to certain contaminant mixtures and the development of allergic or respiratory diseases during childhood. The identification of biomarkers for these exposures in perinatal matrices could not be completed due to methodological challenges that needed to be overcome to generate and analyse these data. However, the identification work is ongoing, as is the analysis of the association of these biomarkers with maternal diet and child health. In parallel, the finalisation of analyses of the samples generated in animal studies will help to better understand the involved pathophysiological mechanisms.

Publications

  • Ghozal M, Kadawathagedara M, Delvert R, Adel-Patient K, Tafflet M, Annesi-Maesano I, Crépet A, Sirot V, Charles MA, Heude B, de Lauzon-Guillain B. Prenatal dietary exposure to chemicals and allergy or respiratory diseases in children in the EDEN mother-child cohort. Environ Int. 2023 Oct;180:108195. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2023.108195. Epub 2023 Sep 12.
  • Ghozal M, Kadawathagedara M, Delvert R, Divaret-Chauveau A, Raherison C, Varraso R, Bédard A, Crépet A, Sirot V, Charles MA, Adel-Patient K, de Lauzon-Guillain B. Prenatal dietary exposure to mixtures of chemicals is associated with allergy or respiratory diseases in children in the ELFE nationwide cohort. Environ Health. 2024;23(1):5. doi: 10.1186/s12940-023-01046-y.
  • Dow C, Kadawathagedara M, Ghozal M, Charles MA, Adel-Patient K, Dereumeaux C, de Lauzon-Guillain B. Maternal diet quality during pregnancy and biomarkers of potentially toxic trace element exposure: Data from the ELFE cohort. Food Chem Toxicol. 2024;190:114793. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2024.114793.
  • Ghozal M, Delvert R, Adel-Patient K, Tafflet M, Annesi-Maesano I, Crépet A, Sirot V, Charles MA, Heude B, Kadawathagedara M, de Lauzon-Guillain B. Dietary exposure to mixtures of chemicals in the first year of life and allergic and respiratory diseases up to 8 years in the French EDEN mother-child cohort. Food Chem Toxicol. 2025;196:115167. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2024.115167.
  • Saunier D, Venot É, Guillon B, Dechaumet S, Castelli F, Thevenot E, Fenaille F, de Lauzon-Guillain B, Adel-Patient K, Rathahao-Paris E. An untargeted data mining strategy for extracting chemical exposome signatures from LC-HRMS data: Application to meconium for early-life exposure assessment. Anal Chim Acta. 2025;1379:344751. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2025.344751
  • Dow C, Kadawathagedara M, Ghozal M, Charles MA, Adel-Patient K, Dereumeaux C, de Lauzon-Guillain B. Prenatal exposure to heavy metals and childhood atopic disease. Environ Res. 2025;270:121062. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2025.121062.

 

 

 

 

 

Partnership: Laboratoire d’Immunoallergologie Alimentaire, Service de Pharmacologie et d’Immunoanalyse (UMR Université Paris Saclay, CEA, INRAE)

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