Seasonal and areal variability in PM2.5 poses differential degranulation and pro-inflammatory effects on RBL-2H3 cells

Coal mining environment causes adverse effects on workers

Background

The objective of this study is to study the adverse effects of coal mining environment on workers to discover early effective biomarkers.

Methods

The molecular epidemiological study was conducted with 502 in-service workers, who were divided into miner and auxiliary. We measured the individual levels of dust exposure for participants. Clinical examinations were conducted by qualified doctors. Peripheral blood was collected to measure biochemistry, hemogram, and karyocyte apoptosis.

Results

All workers were healthy who have not found with any diseases that can be diagnosed medically in the physical examination and showed no difference in dust exposure level, age, height, weight, and body mass index between groups. The working years of miners were lower than that of auxiliaries (p < 0.001). Compared with auxiliaries, the concentration and percentage of lymphocytes (p = 0.040, p = 0.012), basophils (p = 0.027, p = 0.034), and red blood cells (p < 0.001) and the concentration of hemoglobin of miners were lower (p < 0.001). The percentage of neutrophils (p = 0.003), the concentration of mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (p = 0.002), and the proportion of karyocyte apoptosis in miners were higher (p < 0.001). Miners presented higher blood urea nitrogen (p < 0.001), ratio of blood urea nitrogen to creatinine (p < 0.001), the high density lipoprotein cholesterol (p < 0.001), lower creatinine (p < 0.05), and cholesterol (p < 0.001).

Conclusion

The coal mining environment impacted mining workers' immune function, renal function, and the hematopoietic system, including BUN/CRE, HGB, RBC, and LYMPH, which could be used as early biomarkers to screen the health of coal miners.

Long-term exposure to ambient fine particulate matter constituents and mortality from total and site-specific gastrointestinal cancer

BACKGROUND

Ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure has been associated with an increased risk of gastrointestinal cancer mortality, but the attributable constituents remain unclear.

OBJECTIVES

To investigate the association of long-term exposure to PM2.5 constituents with total and site-specific gastrointestinal cancer mortality using a difference-in-differences approach in Jiangsu province, China during 2015-2020.

METHODS

We split Jiangsu into 53 spatial units and computed their yearly death number of total gastrointestinal, esophagus, stomach, colorectum, liver, and pancreas cancer. Utilizing a high-quality grid dataset on PM2.5 constituents, we estimated 10-year population-weighted exposure to black carbon (BC), organic carbon (OC), sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, and chloride in each spatial unit. The effect of constituents on gastrointestinal cancer mortality was assessed by controlling time trends, spatial differences, gross domestic product (GDP), and seasonal temperatures.

RESULTS

Overall, 524,019 gastrointestinal cancer deaths were ascertained in 84.77 million population. Each interquartile range increment of BC (0.46 μg/m3), OC (4.56 μg/m3), and nitrate (1.41 μg/m3) was significantly associated with a 27%, 26%, and 34% increased risk of total gastrointestinal cancer mortality, respectively, and these associations remained significant in PM2.5-adjusted models and constituent-residual models. We also identified robust associations of BC, OC, and nitrate exposures with site-specific gastrointestinal cancer mortality. The mortality risk generally displayed increased trends across the total exposure range and rose steeper at higher levels. We did not identify robust associations for sulfate, ammonium, or chlorine exposure. Higher mortality risk ascribed to constituent exposures was identified in total gastrointestinal and liver cancer among women, stomach cancer among men, and total gastrointestinal and stomach cancer among low-GDP regions.

CONCLUSIONS

This study offers consistent evidence that long-term exposure to PM2.5-bound BC, OC, and nitrate is associated with total and site-specific gastrointestinal cancer mortality, indicating that these constituents need to be controlled to mitigate the adverse effect of PM2.5 on gastrointestinal cancer mortality.

Epigenetic mechanisms of particulate matter exposure: air pollution and hazards on human health

Environmental pollution nowadays has not only a direct correlation with human health changes but a direct social impact. Epidemiological studies have evidenced the increased damage to human health on a daily basis because of damage to the ecological niche. Rapid urban growth and industrialized societies importantly compromise air quality, which can be assessed by a notable accumulation of air pollutants in both the gas and the particle phases. Of them, particulate matter (PM) represents a highly complex mixture of organic and inorganic compounds of the most variable size, composition, and origin. PM being one of the most complex environmental pollutants, its accumulation also varies in a temporal and spatial manner, which challenges current analytical techniques used to investigate PM interactions. Nevertheless, the characterization of the chemical composition of PM is a reliable indicator of the composition of the atmosphere, the quality of breathed air in urbanized societies, industrial zones and consequently gives support for pertinent measures to avoid serious health damage. Epigenomic damage is one of the most promising biological mechanisms of air pollution-derived carcinogenesis. Therefore, this review aims to highlight the implication of PM exposure in diverse molecular mechanisms driving human diseases by altered epigenetic regulation. The presented findings in the context of pan-organic cancer, fibrosis, neurodegeneration and metabolic diseases may provide valuable insights into the toxicity effects of PM components at the epigenomic level and may serve as biomarkers of early detection for novel targeted therapies.

Di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate aggravates fine particulate matter-induced asthma in weanling mice due to T follicular helper cell-dependent response

Environmental pollutants fine particulate matter and di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) are believed to be the risk factors for childhood asthma. Allergic asthma is basically an immediate hypersensitivity mediated by IgE, the product of humoral immune response. T follicular helper cells (Tfh) have been newly identified as the crucial T helper cells for supporting B cells to produce immunoglobulins in humoral immunity. Tfh cells are therefore potentially to serve as the diagnostic marker and therapeutic target of immune diseases. In this study, we examined the joint effects of fine particulate matter and DEHP on the initiation and progression of asthma and explored the fundamental role of Tfh cells during the process. Weanling C57BL/6 mice (both sexes) were concurrently exposed to DEHP (intragastric administration at 300 μg/kg) and fine atmospheric particulate matter (mean particle diameter < 4 µm, PM4) (oropharyngeal instillation at 2 mg/kg) once every three days for 30 days (10 times). We found that DEHP displayed adjuvant effects to potentiate PM4 allergen-induced expansion of Tfh and plasma cells, production of serum IgE and IgG1, and occurrence of airway hyper-responsiveness and inflammation. Then PM4 and DEHP co-exposure was performed to Cd4 knock-out mice reconstituted with normal wild-type adoptive Tfh cells or non-Tfh cells. The results of immune adoptive transfusion indicated that the joint immunotoxic effects of PM4 and DEHP were dependent on Tfh cells. We further proved that DEHP could adjuvantly boost PM4-induced expression of BCL-6 and c-MAF and secretion of IL-13 and IL-4 in Tfh cells. In conclusion, these data suggest that DEHP metabolites act in an adjuvant-like manner to aggravate PM4 allergen-induced asthma based on anaphylactic IgE response, resulting from excessive IL-13 and IL-4 synthesized by abnormally differentiated Tfh cells.

GATA3/long noncoding RNA MHC-R regulates the immune activity of dendritic cells in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease induced by air pollution particulate matter

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a heterogeneous illness associated with aberrant inflammatory immune reaction in the lung in response to noxious particles and gases. Our previous epidemiological studies discovered that long-term exposure to air pollution PM was associated with an increase in the incidence of COPD and lung function decline, but the impact of air pollution on the onset of COPD and its pathogenesis remains obscure. In recent years, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been documented to have a crucial role in COPD. Our preliminary study found that the expression of lncRNA MHC-R in the lung tissues of rats exposed to air pollution PM was dramatically elevated, and the specific expression was mainly focused on the immune-related MHC I, antigen-presenting, and adaptive immune response. After transcription factor prediction, it was found that GATA3 could be combined with the specific sequence of the lncRNA MHC-R promoter region. Dendritic cells (DCs) are necessary antigen-presenting cells (APCs) with the most potent antigen-presenting function. We proved that GATA3/lncRNA MHC-R might regulate the immune activities of DCs to participate in the pathogenic mechanism of COPD induced by air pollution PM, which opens up a new way for early COPD diagnosis and treatment.