The chemical exposome represents the sum of environmental chemical exposures throughout the life of an individual. These include exposure to chemicals from inhalation of polluted air, intake of dietary substances and pharmaceuticals, ingestion of contaminated food and water, but also to the metabolic products of gut microbiota. Chemical exposomes are readily measured in blood, but to conclusively link environmental exposures to disease etiology knowledge of their variability and longitudinal stability is required.

In a publication in Environmental Science & Technology high-resolution chemical exposomics was applied to plasma of 46 adults from a longitudinal multiomic wellness profiling study, resulting in 276 individual exposomes. LC-HRMS for quantitative analysis of a set of priority environmental contaminants was used in parallel with untargeted discovery of environmental chemicals and endogenous metabolites.

This led to the discovery of rarely reported substances, such as personal care products, pesticide transformation products, and polymer additives, and resulted in that the inter- and intraindividual variability for hundreds of molecular environmental exposures could be reported. Despite the small number of individuals included in this study also unique coexposures, and statistically significant exposome-metabolome interactions could be reported, which shows the potential of chemical exposomics in precision health applications.

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