Corrigendum: Transcriptional and epigenetic response to sedentary behavior and physical activity in children and adolescents: A systematic review

A corrigendum on
Transcriptional and epigenetic response to sedentary behavior and physical activity in children and adolescents: A systematic review

by Plaza-Florido, A., Pérez-Prieto, I., Molina-Garcia, P., Radom-Aizik, S., Ortega, F. B., and Altmäe, S. (2022). Front. Pediatr. 10:917152. doi: 10.3389/fped.2022.917152

In the original article, we neglected to include the affiliation number 3 for the author Pablo Molina-Garcia. The affiliation added is “³ Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria (ibs.GRANADA), Granada, Spain.”

In the original article, the reference “37. Radom-Aizik S, Zaldivar F, Leu SY, Cooper DM. Brief bout of exercise alters gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of early- and late-pubertal males. Pediatr Res. (2009) 65:447–52. doi: 10.1203/PDR.0b013e3181993473” was missing. The reference list has been updated.

In the original article, the correct reference number “37. Radom-Aizik S, Zaldivar F, Leu SY, Cooper DM. Brief bout of exercise alters gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of early- and late-pubertal males. Pediatr Res. (2009) 65:447–52. doi: 10.1203/PDR.0b013e3181993473” was not cited in the article.

The citation has now been inserted in the Results section, Paragraph one and Paragraph three, and the Discussion section, Paragraph one and Paragraph nine. These paragraphs appear below.

In the original article, there was an error in Table 1. “Histone acetylation” and “Microarray” are different terms and were combined in the table row. “qPCR” and “tanscriptome” are different terms and were combined in the table row. The corrected Table 1 appears below.

TABLE 1

Table 1. Definition of the main molecular biology-related terms used in this systematic review.

In the original article, there was an error in Table 2, the reference number 37 was indicated for different manuscripts as follows “Radom-Aizik et al. (37)” and “de Souza e Silva et al. (37).” The correct Table 2 appears below.

TABLE 2

Table 2. Summary of study characteristics of articles included in this review.

In the original article, there was an error in the legend of Figure 3, the reference number 37 was missing. The correct legend appears below.

In the original article, we neglected to include the funders The Estonian Research Council (grant PRG1076), and the European Commission and Enterprise Estonia (grant EU48695). The correct Funding statement appears below.

In the original article, the Conflict of Interest statement was incomplete. Author Signe Altmäe was collaborating with Competence Centre on Health Technologies, Estonia. The corrected statement appears below.

Results, Paragraph one

“PRISMA checklist 2020 shows the appropriateness of the methods performed in our systematic review (Supplementary Tables 2, 3). Figure 1 illustrates the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for the selection process of the studies: a total of 1,473 articles were included from the three databases, and after removing the duplicates and non-eligible studies, 15 articles remained eligible for this review (6 cross-sectional articles, 5 studies reported the acute effects of physical activity, and 5 articles showed the chronic effects of physical activity). The sample size ranged from 12 to 369 participants (27–41). The age of participants ranged from 9 to 18 years old (27–41). Thirteen studies used blood samples (27, 29–32, 34–41) while 2 saliva (33) and buccal swabs (28) respectively. Regarding disease, four studies included children with obesity (27, 34, 38, 41) and 1 study children with HIV infection (29). Concerning countries/regions, 4 studies were performed in the United States of America (28, 31, 36, 37), 2 in Brazil (30,38), 4 in Europe (27, 33, 35, 39), 3 in Asia (32, 34, 41), 1 in Mexico (40), and 1 in India (29). All the relevant information extracted from each article is presented in Table 2. In addition, a graphical summary of the mains results is presented in Figure 2. Specific genes and related pathways found in the studies are interpreted and discussed in the context of existing knowledge in the Discussion section.”

Results, Paragraph three

“Five out of the twelve articles presented in Table 2 reported significant effects of acute bout of physical activity on gene expression (31, 35–37, 39). Among the five studies, three reported the effects of acute bout of physical activity using candidate gene analyses (i.e., mRNA or miRNA expression) (31, 35, 39), while two studies performed high-throughput transcriptomics analyses using microarrays (36, 37). Four studies used circulating peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) to quantify gene expression (31, 36, 37, 39), while one study used capillary blood samples from the earlobe (35).”

Discussion, Paragraph one

“This study aimed to provide current knowledge on the effect of sedentary behavior and physical activity on gene expression and epigenetic mechanisms in the pediatric population. The main findings and gaps identified by this systematic review in children and adolescents were: (1) there is very limited information of the molecular mechanisms of sedentary behavior and/or physical activity on gene expression and its regulation in pediatric population; (2) most of the studies showed that sedentary behavior and physical activity (acute and chronic effects) alter gene and MicroRNA expression, and DNA methylation of candidate genes related to obesity, asthma, immune function, and cardiovascular disease; (3) the studies are hardly comparable due to different candidate genes selected, characteristics of the exposure, health and training status of the participants, and study designs; (4) only two studies performed high-throughput transcriptomics analyses and detected thousands of genes differentially altered by acute bout of physical activity in boys and girls at different pubertal stages (36, 37). The relatively small number of studies, the heterogeneity in the methodology, different study designs, and most of the studies were performed in Europe and/or the United States of America (8/15) limit the extrapolation of our findings to the general pediatric population. Studies using high-throughput techniques (i.e., sequencing) and longitudinal study approach and/or randomized controlled trials on bigger cohorts are lacking in children and adolescents.”

Discussion, Paragraph nine

“In regards to high-throughput analyses, two studies reported the acute effects of physical activity (cycle ergometer test, 10 ×2 min bouts, ~90% of HRpeak with 1-min rest intervals) on gene expression profile in PBMCs of healthy boys and girls at different pubertal stages using microarrays analysis (36, 37). The expression of 1,246 genes were altered following the acute physical activity bout in late-pubertal boys (37), while the expression level of 109 genes was found to be altered in early-pubertal boys (37). 13 gene pathways related to immune function and type I diabetes, among others were enriched (37). Contrary to boys, the difference in the number of genes their expression was altered following the same acute bout of physical activity was much smaller; 877 genes in late-pubertal girls (36) and 1,320 genes in early-pubertal girls (36). 622 genes overlapped between the groups. These genes enriched gene pathways involved in inflammation, stress, and apoptosis (36). These pioneering studies highlight the need to account for sex and pubertal stage when interpreting genomic data in response to acute bout of physical activity (36, 37), and the need to apply high-throughput approach to better understand the molecular mechanisms involved in the response to physical activity.”

Figure 3. The complex integration of “omics” data (i.e., multi-omics analysis) might contribute to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the health-related benefits of physical activity in children and adolescents. The human genome is essentially invariant and comprises more than 25,000 genes, which encode ~100,000–200,000 transcripts and 1 million proteins, and a smaller number of metabolites (2,500–3,000) make up the human metabolome (71). The epigenome, which can be influenced by physical activity in adults (15), shows a low/moderate temporal variance and influences both transcriptome and proteome. The transcriptome can be affected by a single bout of physical activity (36, 37) in children and presents a high temporal variance and is translated into the proteome, influencing the metabolome in a tissue-specific manner. Figure modified from Altmäe et al. (72) with permission of the Publisher. This figure was created with BioRender.com.

Funding

The project was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Reference DEP2013-47540, DEP2016-79512-R, and DEP2017-91544-EXP); the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER): grants RYC-2016-21199 and ENDORE SAF2017-87526-R. AP-F and IP-P were supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (FPU 16/02760; FPU19/05561). SA was supported by NIH UO1 TR002004 and PERC Systems Biology Fund. This research was partly funded by Huawei Technologies, Finland. Additional support was obtained from the EXERNET Research Network on Exercise and Health (DEP2005- 00046/ACTI; 09/UPB/19; 45/UPB/20; 27/UPB/21); Alicia Koplowitz Foundation. This study has been partially funded by the University of Granada, Plan Propio de Investigación 2016, Excellence actions: Units of Excellence; Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES), and by the Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Conocimiento, Investigación y Universidades and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), ref. SOMM17/6107/UGR. Additional funding was obtained from the Andalusian Operational Program supported with European Regional Development Funds (FEDER) projects ref: B-CTS-355,UGR18, B-CTS-500-UGR18 and A-CTS-614-UGR20; and the Junta de Andalucía (PAIDI P20_00158). The Estonian Research Council (grant PRG1076); the European Commission and Enterprise Estonia (grant EU48695).

Conflict of interest

The author SA is collaborating with the Competence Centre on Health Technologies (Estonia) and is not employed by the entity.

The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The authors apologize for these errors and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.

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