Project description:Imprinted genes defy rules of Mendelian genetics with their expression tied to the parent from whom each allele was inherited. They are known to play a role in various diseases/disorders including fetal growth disruption, lower birth weight, obesity, and cancer. There is increasing interest in understanding their influence on environmentally-induced disease. The environment can be thought of broadly as including chemicals present in air, water and soil, as well as food. According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), some of the highest ranking environmental chemicals of concern include metals/metalloids such as arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury. The complex relationships between toxic metal exposure, imprinted gene regulation/expression and health outcomes are understudied. Herein we examine trends in imprinted gene biology, including an assessment of the imprinted genes and their known functional roles in the cell, particularly as they relate to toxic metals exposure and disease. The data highlight that many of the imprinted genes have known associations to developmental diseases and are enriched for their role in the TP53 and AhR pathways. Assessment of the promoter regions of the imprinted genes resulted in the identification of an enrichment of binding sites for two transcription factor families, namely the zinc finger family II and PLAG transcription factors. Taken together these data contribute insight into the complex relationships between toxic metals in the environment and imprinted gene biology.
Project description:Most inequality research on the relationship between inequality and mental health has focused on cross-country variation. Findings from within-country data are mixed. We examined whether changes in municipal Gini index or in the share of people living in relative poverty were linked to changes in the use of antidepressants in several Finnish municipalities between 1995 and 2010. We found that more young adult females used antidepressants in municipalities where relative poverty had increased. Changes in municipal-level Gini index were not positively associated with changes in the use of antidepressants in the municipalities between 1995 and 2010. However, fewer elderly females used antidepressants in municipalities where the Gini index increased. In addition, more young adults used antidepressants in municipalities where the number of those not being educated or trained had also increased. An increase in the number of persons over 65 years of age living alone was positively associated with an increase in the use of antidepressants among elderly females.
Project description:This study aimed to assess the concentrations of heavy metal ('lead (Pb)''cadmium (Cd)', and 'chromium (Cr)') in various brands of four types of tobacco products (zarda, gul, cigarettes, and bidi) as well as calculate toxicological risk as a lifetime cancer risk for Pb, Cd, and Cr. In smokeless tobacco products, the metal concentration ranged from 0.99 to 10.02??g/g for Pb, 1.05-3.53??g/g for Cd, and 1.23-7.29??g/g for Cr, respectively. Metal concentrations in the smoke-based tobacco products ranged from 0.98 to 3.07??g/g for Pb, 0.91-3.46??g/g for Cd, 1.08-6.75??g/g for Cr, respectively. When assuming a 100% transfer of these metals, the calculated lifetime cancer risk was found 'unacceptable' in 33 out of 35 tobacco samples which exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) benchmark of an 'acceptable' cancer risk range of 10E-4 to 10E-6. Our study demonstrated higher levels of Pb, Cd, and Cr in various tobacco products of Bangladesh compared to GOTHIATEK standard. This study shows the need for the development of industry standards and regulation for tobacco products to reduce the levels of heavy metals.
Project description:The soil ecosystem is easily polluted by heavy metals. Cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb), as the main pollutants of heavy metals, cause much harm to the soil ecosystem. However, the impact of the two chemicals on rhizosphere microorganisms remains almost unknown. The change of catalase (CAT) activity was consistent with the microbial biomass. 16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed on soil samples to study the toxic effect of heavy metals. On performing sequence analysis at the phylum and family taxonomic levels, 32 identified phyla and 303 families were observed. The dominant phylum was Proteobacteria followed by Bacteroidetes, Acidobacteria, and Actinobacteria. The relative abundance of the dominant phyla was obviously changed under the stress of Cd and Pb, suggesting that the heavy metal input had affected the microbial community structure. At the Order and Family levels, there was different variation of richness and diversity in Cd and Pb group as compared to those in the control group. Furthermore, abundance and similarity analysis showed the differences between Cd and Pb, indicating different toxicology effect on rhizosphere microbial communities because of the unique properties. This study provided a novel insight into the composition of microbial communities of rhizosphere, which could be used to evaluate the soil environment.
Project description:Food packaging materials constitute an ever more threatening environmental pollutant. This study examined options to specifically assess the ecotoxicity of packaged wastes, such as cans, subjected to various experimental treatments (in terms of extraction media, time of exposure, and temperature) that imitate several basic conditions of the process of food production. The extracts were studied for their ecotoxicity with bioluminescent Vibrio fischeri bacteria. The first objective of this study was to find patterns of similarity between different experimental conditions; we used multivariate statistical methods, such as hierarchical cluster analysis, to interpret the impact of experimental conditions on the ecotoxicity signals of the package extracts. Our second objective was to apply best-fit function modelling for additional data interpretation, taking into account, that ecotoxicity for various temperature conditions is time- and temperature dependent. We mathematically confirmed that chemometric data treatment allows for better understanding how different experimental conditions imitating the real use of food packaging. We also demonstrate that the level of ecotoxicity depends on different extraction media, time of exposure, and temperature regime.
Project description:Cataract is a major cause of visual dysfunction and the leading cause of blindness. Elevated levels of cadmium and lead have been found in the lenses of cataract patients, suggesting these metals may play a role in cataract risk. This study aimed to examine the associations of blood lead, blood cadmium and urinary cadmium with cataract risk. We identified 9763 individuals aged 50 years and older with blood lead and cadmium levels, and a randomly selected subgroup of 3175 individuals with available urinary cadmium levels, from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) from 1999 to 2008 (mean age=63years). Participants were considered to have cataract if they self-reported prior cataract surgery in NHANES's vision examination. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were computed using survey logistic regression models. We identified 1737 cataract surgery cases (the weighted prevalence=14.1%). With adjustment for age, race/ethnicity, gender, education, diabetes mellitus, body mass index, cigarette smoking (serum cotinine and pack-years) and urine hydration, every 2-fold increase in urinary cadmium was associated with a 23% higher risk of cataract surgery (OR=1.23, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.46, p=0.021). We found no associations of cataract surgery with blood cadmium (OR=0.97, 95% CI: 0.89, 1.07) and blood lead (OR=0.97, 95% CI: 0.88, 1.06). Mediation analysis showed that for the smoking-cadmium-cataract pathway, the ratio of smoking's indirect effect to the total effect through cadmium was more than 50%. These results suggest that cumulative cadmium exposure may be an important under-recognized risk factor for cataract. However, these findings should be interpreted with a caution because of inconsistent results between urinary cadmium and blood cadmium.
Project description:Rapid urbanization and industrialization result in serious contamination of soil with toxic metals such as lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd), which can lead to deleterious health impacts in the exposed population. This study aimed to investigate Pb and Cd contamination in agricultural soils and vegetables in five different agricultural sites in Pakistan. The metal transfer from soil-to-plant, average daily intake of metals, and health risk index (HRI) were also characterized. The Pb concentrations for all soils were below the maximum allowable limits (MAL 350 mg kg-1) set by State Environmental Protection Administration of China (SEPA), for soils in China, while Cd concentrations in the soils were exceeded the MAL (61.7-73.7% and 4.39-34.3%) set by SEPA (0.6 mg kg-), and European Union, (1.5 mg kg-1) respectively. The mean Pb concentration in edible parts of vegetables ranged from 1.8 to 11 mg kg-1. The Pb concentrations for leafy vegetables were higher than the fruiting and pulpy vegetables. The Pb concentrations exceeded the MAL (0.3 mg kg-1) for leafy vegetables and the 0.1 mg kg-1 MAL for fruity and rooty/tuber vegetables set by FAO/WHO-CODEX. Likewise, all vegetables except Pisum sativum (0.12 mg kg-1) contained Cd concentrations that exceeded the MAL set by SEPA. The HRI values for Pb and Cd were <1 for both adults and children for most of the vegetable species except Luffa acutangula, Solanum lycopersicum, Benincasa hispada, Momordi charantia, Aesculantus malvaceae, Cucumis sativus, Praecitrullus fistulosus, Brassica oleracea, and Colocasia esculanta for children. Based on these results, consumption of these Pb and Cd contaminated vegetables poses a potential health risk to the local consumers.
Project description:Cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) are heavy metals, important environmental pollutants, and potent toxicants to organism. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been reported to remove Cd and Pb from solutions and therefore represent a useful tool for decontamination of food and beverages from heavy metals. Heavy metal ion binding by LAB was reported as metabolism-independent surface process. In this work ten Lactobacillus strains were investigated with respect to hydrophobicity, Lewis acid-base, and electrostatic properties of their outer cell surface in order to characterize their Cd and Pb removal capacity. Seven L. plantarum and L. fermentum strains were shown to remove Cd from culture medium. The metabolism-dependent accumulation mechanism of Cd removal was proposed based on extended character of Cd binding and lack of correlation between any of the surface characteristics and Cd removal. The results of this study should be considered when selecting probiotic strains for people at risk of Cd exposure.
Project description:Rice consumption is the primary route of cadmium (Cd) exposure to the populations with rice as the staple food. To accurately assess the potential health risks of Cd exposure via rice consumption, determination of Cd relative bioavailability (RBA) in rice is necessary. However, large variations exist in Cd-RBA, hindering the application of source-specific Cd-RBA values to different rice samples. In this study, we collected 14 rice samples from Cd contaminated areas and determined both rice compositions and Cd-RBA using in vivo mouse bioassay. Total Cd concentration varied from 0.19 to 2.54 mg/kg in the 14 rice samples, while Cd-RBA in rice ranged from 42.10% to 76.29%. Cadmium-RBA in rice correlated positively with calcium (Ca) (R = 0.76) and amylose content (R = 0.75) but negatively with the concentrations of sulfur (R = -0.85), phosphorus (R = -0.73), phytic acid (R = -0.68), and crude protein (R = -0.53). Cd-RBA in rice can be predicted by Ca and phytic acid concentrations in a regression model (R2 = 0.80). Based on the total and bioavailable Cd concentrations in rice, weekly dietary Cd intake for adults was estimated to be 4.84-64.88 and 2.04-42.29 μg/kg bw/week, respectively. This work demonstrates the possibility of Cd-RBA prediction based on rice compositions and provides valuable suggestions for health risk assessment with consideration of Cd-RBA.
Project description:Recently, the search for low-cost eco-friendly adsorbents has become one of the main objectives of researchers. The aim of this study was to test the removal of four heavy metals, namely lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), nickel (Ni) and cadmium (Cd), from a simulated watery solution using brewed tea waste as a potentially suitable adsorbent. The effects of pH levels (2.0-6.0), adsorbent amount (0.1-5.0 g), contact times (1-150 min.) were examined throughout the adsorption process. The results of the experiments showed that the heavy metals elimination yields had an inverse relationship with pH and a linear relationship between the other parameters. The optimum pH for the removal of the heavy metals was between 4.0 and 5.0 in the case of the brewed tea waste. Equilibrium times of 2, 10, 30 and 5 min were required for the adsorption of Pb, Zn, Ni, Cd onto Camellia sinensis, respectively. Based on the results of this study it can be said that brewed tea waste has a high potential to remove heavy metals from aqueous solutions. The maximum adsorption capacities were calculated as 1.197, 1.457, 1.163 and 2.468 mg/g, for Pb, Zn, Ni and Cd, respectively, by fitting the equilibrium data to the Langmuir isotherm model.