Num. Contratto:
226217

Coordinatore: UNIV. AARHUS (Danimarca)

Responsabile ENEA: SPANO' MARCELLO - SSPT-TECS-BIORISC (CASACCIA)

Ruolo ENEA: PARTNER

Sito Web: http://www.inuendo.dk/clear/

Programma Quadro: Settimo Programma Quadro R&ST (2007-2013)

Programma UE: AMBIENTE (2007-2013) - Ambiente (compresi i cambiamenti climatici)

Area Tematica: Environment - climate change

Tipo Progetto: CP - Progetto di collaborazione

Descrizione:

CLEAR is part of the NECTAR cluster (http://www.nectarcluster.eu/index.htm). The research project investigates the possible impact of global climate change on reproductive health in Arctic and two local European populations. The key questions to be addressed are, first, how may climate change impact on human exposure to widespread environmental contaminants and, second, how may contaminants impact on occurrence of reproductive disorders as sensitive indicators of health? To provide affirmative answers to these questions the proposal will (i) identify and describe mechanisms by which a changing climate may affect the exposure of arctic and other human populations to contaminants through change in chemical use and emissions, delivery to the arctic ecosystem as well as processing within the arctic physical environment and human food chain. This work relies on modeling of existing data (ii) expand the existing knowledge database on human exposure to polybrominated-biphenylethers, perfluorinated surfactants and phthalates by analyses of 1000 biobanked serum samples collected in a EU FP5 project (iii) increase the limited knowledge on links between human exposure to contaminants and reproductive health. This work relies on a large existing parent-child-cohort, where a follow-up survey provide new data that are fed into risk assessment (iv) perform reviews of experimental and epidemiological literature to identify critical reproductive effects and exposure-response data for selected compounds as input to the risk assesment (v) integrate data on relative climate induced changes in contaminant mobility and distribution and links between contaminant exposure and reproductive health into a risk evaluation providing insight into possible future risk scenarios related to global climate change The project draws upon a network of experts in climate modelling and in experimental, epidemiological and risk assessment methodologies and builds upon three established cohorts in Greenland, Warsaw and Ukraine.

Attività svolta da ENEA:

L'ENEA partecipa alla Task 2 Epigenetics (objective 2.) ENEA will assess the level of global DNA methylation in 200 semen samples. Methods using specific monoclonal antibodies to methylated cytosine (or cytidine) to evaluate the human sperm global methylation pattern have been described both for fluorescence microscopy and for flow cytometry. So far, only limited clinical applications of this method have been described. In this project, which represents the first application to field studies, we plan to set up and standardize a flow cytometry immunofluorescence approach to measure the level of global DNA methylation on sperm-by-sperm basis by using commercially available monoclonal antibodies against 5-methylcytosine (5-Mc). The 5-Mc measurements will be carried out trying to unravel human heterogeneity for the resulting phenotype (at a first level, high and low degree of DNA methylation) and possible associations between this and other biomarkers of exposure and effect. The results of the 5-Mc measurements will be compared to the results of SCSA on the very same samples carried out previously within the framework of the INUENDO project.

Note:

Posizione:
1067

Codice Atto:
07M92

Atto di approvazione ENEA:
28/2009/BAS

Unità alla stipula:
BAS-BIOTECMED

Costo eleggibile del Progetto: 3.181.079,00

Contributo al Progetto: 2.377.604,00

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Costo eleggibile per ENEA: 207.466,00

Contributo ad ENEA: 132.778,00

Anno di stipula:
2009

Durata in mesi:
48

Data di inizio:
01-05-2009

Data di scadenza:
31-10-2013