ABSTRACT
This chapter describes evidence generated over the years which highlights the important role of air pollution as an important contributor to the growing prevalence of allergic diseases. Exposure to air pollutants starts even before one is born. A recent study from the Netherlands showed that mothers exposed to even modest levels of air pollutants, especially particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide during pregnancy, not only have higher levels of Circulating C-Reactive Protein (CRP), a systemic inflammatory biomarker, but even babies born to them show higher levels of circulating CRP. Epigenetics refers to changes in the genome that are not coded by the genomic sequence itself, but ultimately affect the expression of gene transcripts, and determine potentially heritable changes in gene expression. Pollutants can affect the lung by altering its immune response and airway inflammation. Pollutants may differentially affect by epigenetic changes or other mechanisms, the function and/or regulation of different variants of innate immunity.
