A Predictive Model Assessing Genetic Susceptibility Risk at Workplace

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph16112012

Authors: Chiarella Capone Carbonari Sisto

(1) Background: The study of susceptibility biomarkers in the immigrant workforce integrated into the social tissue of European host countries is always a challenge, due to high individual heterogeneity and the admixing of different ethnicities in the same workplace. These workers having distinct cultural backgrounds, beliefs, diets, and habits, as well as a poor knowledge of the foreign language, may feel reluctant to donate their biological specimens for the biomonitoring research studies. (2) Methods: A model predicting ethnicity-specific susceptibility based on principal component analysis has been conceived, using the genotype frequency of the investigated populations available in publicly accessible databases. (3) Results: Correlations among ethnicities and between ethnic and polymorphic genes have been found, and low/high-risk profiles have been identified as valuable susceptibility biomarkers. (4) Conclusions: In the absence of workers’ consent or access to blood genotyping, ethnicity represents a good indicator of the subject’s genotype. This model, associating ethnicity-specific genotype frequency with the susceptibility biomarkers involved in the metabolism of toxicants, may replace genotyping, ensuring the necessary safety and health conditions of workers assigned to hazardous jobs.