Machine learning assisted discovery of synergistic interactions between environmental pesticides, phthalates, phenols, and trace elements in child neurodevelopment

Abstract

A growing body of literature suggests that higher developmental exposure to individual or mixtures of environmental chemicals (ECs) is associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the effect of interactions among these ECs is challenging to study. We introduced a composition of the classical exposure-mixture Weighted Quantile Sum (WQS) regression, and a machine-learning method called signed iterative random forest (SiRF) to discover synergistic interactions between ECs that are (1) associated with higher odds of ASD diagnosis, (2) mimic toxicological interactions, and (3) are present only in a subset of the sample whose chemical concentrations are higher than certain thresholds. In the case-control Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and Environment study, we evaluated multi-ordered synergistic interactions among 62 ECs measured in the urine samples of 479 children in association with increased odds for ASD diagnosis (yes vs. no). WQS-SiRF discovered two synergistic two-ordered interactions between (1) trace-element cadmium(Cd) and alkyl-phosphate pesticide - diethyl-phosphate(DEP); and (2) 2,4,6-trichlorophenol(TCP-246) and DEP metabolites. Both interactions were suggestively associated with increased odds of ASD diagnosis in a subset of children with urinary concentrations of Cd, DEP, and TCP-246 above the 75thpercentile. This study demonstrates a novel method that combines the inferential power of WQS and the predictive accuracy of machine-learning algorithms to discover interpretable EC interactions associated with ASD.SynopsisThe effect of interactions among environmental chemicals on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis is challenging to study. We used a combination of Weighted Quantile Sum regression and machine-learning tools to study multi-ordered synergistic interactions between environmental chemicals associated with higher odds of ASD diagnosis.Graphical Abstract