From Environmental Exposures to Health: Metabolic Signatures in Exposome Research

Hello everyone,
I would like to introduce a special issue that I will be guest editing, titled
“From Environmental Exposures to Health: Metabolic Signatures in Exposome Research.”

This special issue belongs to the section “Environmental Metabolomics”.

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The exposome—encompassing the totality of environmental exposures from conception onwards—has emerged as a critical framework for understanding how external factors shape human health. Environmental exposures, including air pollutants (such as PM2.5), chemical contaminants (such as PFAS), dietary factors, and lifestyle variables, exert profound effects on biological systems, yet the molecular mechanisms linking exposures to disease outcomes remain poorly understood. Metabolomics, as a powerful post-genomic approach, offers unique opportunities to bridge this knowledge gap by capturing the downstream biochemical consequences of environmental interactions at the molecular level.

This Special Issue is devoted to Metabolic Signatures in Exposome Research, with a focus on how metabolomics can elucidate the biological pathways through which environmental exposures influence health and disease. We welcome original research articles, reviews, and methodological papers addressing topics including, but not limited to, the following: metabolomic profiling of responses to air pollution, heavy metals, and other environmental toxicants; identification of metabolic biomarkers for exposure assessment and early disease detection; integration of metabolomics with other omics approaches (genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics) in exposome studies; longitudinal and prospective cohort studies examining exposure–metabolome–health relationships; novel analytical and computational methods for exposome-wide metabolomics; and mechanistic insights into how environmental factors perturb metabolic networks to promote chronic diseases such as cardiovascular, respiratory, and metabolic disorders.

By bringing together expertise from environmental health, epidemiology, and metabolomics, this Special Issue aims to advance our understanding of exposure–disease relationships and contribute to the development of precision prevention strategies.

Dr. Xiangping Lin
Dr. Xinyu Liu
Dr. Guozhu Ye

Guest Editors

For more information, please visit the Special Issue Website.