**Acknowledgements**

We would like to acknowledge the great help and support of our friends from National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, USA, especially Drs. Joellen Lewtas, Lawrence W. Reiter, and Sally Perault Darney. Thanks to their support we were able to establish molecular epidemiology methods in the Czech Republic.

Writing of this review was supported by Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (P30113-13458S) and by CITI-SENSE, a Collaborative Project funded by the EU FP7-ENV-2012 (no. 308524).
