Adverse health effects from air pollutants remain important, despite improvement in air quality in the past few decades. The exact mechanisms of lung injury from exposure to air pollutants are not yet fully understood. Studying the genome (e.g. single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs), epigenome (e.g. methylation of genes), transcriptome (mRNA expression) and microRNAome (microRNA expression) has the potential to improve our understanding of the adverse effects of air pollutants.

Genome‐wide association studies of SNPs have detected SNPs associated with respiratory phenotypes; however, to date, only candidate gene studies of air pollution exposure have been performed. Changes in epigenetic processes, such DNA methylation which leads to gene silencing without altering the DNA sequen...