The editorial team of "Nature" became interested in the innovative research of the scientist from Lodz, conducted during her scholarship in Australia. The article by dr Pruszkowska-Przybylska devoted to the research course and results has been published in the prestigious “Scientific Reports”, in which scientists from around the world share their discoveries.
Epigenetics – young science
Epigenetics, a very young field of science, which studies changes in gene expression independent of the DNA sequences inherited from parents and grandparents deals with determination of biological age. It focuses on those which throughout life give a person new features as a result of external factors, leading, among others, to accelerated aging of the body.
What are these factors? They are very diverse: human environment, climate, diet, level of alcohol consumption, smoking, physical activity and many others. Epigenetics identifies, describes and creates algorithms that determine how these factors affect the human genome. And the whole thing is not simple. For example, studies have shown that excessive alcohol consumption accelerates genome degeneration, but moderate alcohol consumption – quite the opposite. However, it may vary from person to person. So, what does the phenomenon of gene expression induced by external factors consist in?
To put it simply, it is a bit as if several cooks were cooking tomato soup using one recipe (inherited DNA), but each will end up with soup of slightly different taste, because each will do it their own way (the effect of external factors). Or identical twins: at birth, they are almost clones of identical genotype, they do not differ. However, with age, leading a different lifestyle, functioning in different conditions, they begin to look different - explains dr Pruszkowska-Przybylska, who on an everyday basis works at the Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz.
Research in the Antipodes
The researcher from Lodz is most interested in the group of chemical factors responsible for changes in the genome – the so-called DNA methylation. She has chosen Australia as the country of research for a reason.
When preparing for the scholarship for young scientists, I was looking for a place where I could work under the supervision of the most experienced epigeneticists in the world. And it turned out that professor Eric Moses and dr Phillip Melton, who work there are among the most outstanding ones - explains dr Pruszkowska-Przybylska.
The project of the scientist from Lodz in Australia took several weeks, and the final works lasted two years. In her research she examined – as she explains in her article for “Nature” – 166 unrelated pregnant women of very similar age, of exclusively European genetic ancestry recruited previously at the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne. Seventy-seven of them suffered from preeclampsia and 89 showed no such symptoms. After biological age tests using blood samples of the patients, some of the algorithms have shown that the women affected by pre-eclampsia have a biological age higher than that indicated in the calendar. This acceleration of genome degradation and, consequently, age was probably due to the influence of external factors.
First: prevention
Preeclampsia is a dangerous syndrome that is overlooked in pregnancy. In addition to increased blood pressure, it is associated with proteinuria, convulsions and even coma. Some of its symptoms may threaten the life and health of a mother and foetus. Only recently has it started to be considered as a disease syndrome in obstetric and gynaecological care for future mothers.
My research is a brick that in the future may result in the creation of algorithms successfully used in the prevention of pre-eclampsia. They show, among others, that when deciding to become pregnant, it is worth checking one’s biological age. This way, you can exclude (or confirm) the risk of this syndrome when you are pregnant, and adjust the nature of medical care to this knowledge - emphasizes dr Paulina Pruszkowska-Przybylska.
Another challenge for the researcher from the University of Lodz
The importance and the role of the biologist’s work from Lodz is best evidenced by the fact that she is already preparing for another international research internship, for which she has received funding under a grant from the National Science Centre – Miniatura 5. This time, in Denmark, she will conduct research on the biological age of patients with cardiac arrest. She will try to determine whether there is a correlation between the accelerated degradation of the genome and the occurrence of this extremely dangerous, usually fatal, disease. Recently, in front of fans around the world, it was experienced by, for example, Christian Eriksen, a footballer of the Danish national team, who suddenly lost consciousness during a match against Finland during Euro 2020.
Dr Paulina Pruszkowska-Przybylska is an extremely active person, not only in the field of science. Her passions include traveling, hiking in the mountains, swimming and cycling (she cycles every day, also in winter). Together with her husband, she runs the travel blog "Worldeaters". She is planning an expedition to the Himalayas in the near future.
Edit: Promotion Centre of the University of Lodz