Project description:Yangyinqingfei Decoction (YYQFD), a traditional Chinese prescription, is well known in the treatment of diphtheria and lung-related diseases in clinic. However, the underlying mechanism how to treat lung-related diseases remains unclear. In the present study, the intervention effect of YYQFD on PM2.5-induced lung injury mice and its potential mechanism were investigated by metabolomics and proteomic techniques. The results showed that YYQFD could significantly improve pulmonary functions, relieve lung injury, as well as reduce IL-6, TNF-α and MDA, and increase SOD levels in serum and BALF of PM2.5-induced lung injury mice. Furthermore, the protein-metabolite joint analysis presented that YYQFD regulated the pathways of arachidonic acid metabolism, linoleic acid metabolism, and biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids with significantly down-regulating arachidonic acid, 20-HETE, prostaglandin E2, lecithin, linoleic acid, α-linolenic acid, eicosatetraenoic acid, and γ-linolenic acid, and up-regulating PTGES2, GPX2 and CBR3 protein expressions in lung tissue. A regulatory metabolic network map was further constructed, which provide us a better understanding about the role of YYQFD on PM2.5-induced lung injury mice and new insight into YYQFD application for the treatment of lung-related diseases.
Project description:Lung cancer cells exposed to PM2.5 for 90 days or overexpressed TMPRSS2 were employed as a cellular model to evaluate the effects of long-term exposure to PM2.5 on lung cancer progression.
Project description:Lung cancer cells exposed to PM2.5 for 90 days or overexpressed TMPRSS2 were employed as a cellular model to evaluate the effects of long-term exposure to PM2.5 on lung cancer progression.
Project description:Forty-six percent of the world's population resides in rural areas, the majority of whom belong to vulnerable and low-income groups. They mainly use cheap solid fuels for cooking and heating, which release a large amount of PM2.5 and cause adverse effects to human health. PM2.5 exhibits urban-rural differences in its health risk to the respiratory system. However, the majority of research on this issue has focused on respiratory diseases induced by atmospheric PM2.5 in urban areas, while rural areas have been ignored for a long time, especially the pathogenesis of respiratory diseases. This is not helpful for promoting environmental equity to aid low-income and vulnerable groups under PM2.5 pollution. Thus, this study focuses on rural atmospheric PM2.5 in terms of its chemical components, toxicological effects, respiratory disease types, and pathogenesis, represented by PM2.5 from rural areas in the Sichuan Basin, China (Rural SC-PM2.5). In this study, organic carbon is the most significant component of Rural SC-PM2.5. Rural SC-PM2.5 significantly induces cytotoxicity, oxidative stress, and inflammatory response. Based on multiomics, bioinformatics, and molecular biology, Rural SC-PM2.5 inhibits ribonucleotide reductase regulatory subunit M2 (RRM2) to disrupt the cell cycle, impede DNA replication, and ultimately inhibit lung cell proliferation. Furthermore, this study supplements and supports the epidemic investigation. Through an analysis of the transcriptome and human disease database, it is found that Rural SC-PM2.5 may mainly involve pulmonary hypertension, sarcoidosis, and interstitial lung diseases; in particular, congenital diseases may be ignored by epidemiological surveys in rural areas, including tracheoesophageal fistula, submucous cleft of the hard palate, and congenital hypoplasia of the lung. This study contributes to a greater scientific understanding of the health risks posed by rural PM2.5, elucidates the pathogenesis of respiratory diseases, clarifies the types of respiratory diseases, and promotes environmental equity.
Project description:The perinatal period and early infancy are considered critical periods for lung development, and adversities during this period are believed to impact lung health in adulthood.The main factors affecting postnatal lung development and growth include environmental exposures, cigarette smoking, (viral) infections, allergic sensitization, and asthma.Therefore, we hypothesized that concomitant exposure in the early postnatal period in mice would cause more profound alterations in lung alveolarization and growth in adult life, quantified by stereology, and differently modulate lung inflammation and gene expression than either insult alone.Five-day-old male mice were immunized intraperitoneally (i.p.) with 10 µg of ovalbumin (OVA). This procedure was repeated at the 7th day of life, animals from the control group received i.p. injection of PBS only. Mice were exposed to either ambient PM2.5 or filtered air from the 5th to the 39th day of life, using an ambient particle concentrator developed at the Harvard School of Public Health (HAPC).Total RNA of lung samples (n=3 animals per group) was extracted using RNeasy Mini Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany), according to manufacturer's instructions. The microarray analysis was performed using three RNA samples for each studied group (Control, OVA, PM2.5, OVA+PM2.5), totalizing 12 samples. One hundred nanograms of total RNA was amplified with the Ambion WT Expression Kit and hybridized onto the GeneChip Mouse Gene 2.0 ST Array (Thermo Scientific, Massachusetts, USA), following manufacturer’s protocol. The comparison between the control and OVA group exhibit 32 DEGs (28 up-regulated and 4 down-regulated), between the control and PM2.5 group had 6 DEGs (4 up and 2 down) and between the control and OVA+PM2.5 group had 5 DEGs (4 up and 1 down). The comparison between OVA and PM2.5 group showed 97 DEGS (22 up and 75 down) and between OVA and OVA+PM2.5 group had 7 DEGs (4 up and 3 down). Finally, the comparison between the PM2.5 and OVA+PM2.5 group exhibit 34 DEGs (2 up and 32 down).Our experimental data provide pathological support for the hypothesis that either allergic or environmental insults in early life have permanent adverse consequences to lung growth. In addition, combined insults were associated with the development of a COPD-like phenotype in young adult mice.
Project description:Chronic exposure to ambient particulate matter <2.5µ (PM2.5) has been linked to cardiopulmonary disease. Tissue-resident (TR) alveolar macrophages (AΦ) are long lived, self-renew and critical to the health impact of inhalational insults. There is inadequate understanding of the impact of PM2.5 exposure on nature/time course of transcriptional responses and the proliferation/maintenance of AΦ including the contribution from bone marrow (BM) over chronic time periods. We investigated the effects of exposure to real-world concentrated PM2.5 or filtered air (FA) in chimeric (CD45.2/CD45.1) mice. Here, we show that PM2.5 exposure induces an influx of BM-derived monocytes to lungs at 4-weeks, with no contribution to TR-AΦ population. Chronic (32-weeks) PM2.5 exposure resulted in enhanced apoptosis (Annexin V+) and decreased proliferation (BrdU+) of TR-AΦ and presence of BM-AΦ in inflamed lungs. RNA-seq analysis of flow sorted TR-AΦ and BM-AΦ from 4 and 32-weeks exposed mice, revealed a unique time dependent pattern of differentially expressed genes, with PM2.5 exposure with a pro-inflammatory bias. PM2.5 exposure resulted in pulmonary fibrosis and reduced alveolar fraction which corresponded to protracted lung inflammation. Our findings suggest a time dependent PM2.5 entrainment of a BM-derived monocytes infiltration into PM2.5 exposed lungs with an inflammatory phenotype, that together with enhanced apoptosis of TR-AΦ and pro-inflammatory polarization may contribute to perpetuation of chronic inflammation and lung fibrosis.
Project description:Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that exposure to particulate matter (PM) ambient pollution has adverse effects on lung health, exacerbated by cigarette smoking. Fine airborne particles <2.5 µm (PM2.5) are the most harmful of the urban pollutants, and the most closely linked to respiratory disease. Based on the knowledge that the small airway epithelium (SAE) plays a central role in pathogenesis of smoking-related lung disease, we hypothesized that elevated PM2.5 levels are associated with dysregulation of SAE gene expression.
Project description:Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution remains a major threat to public health. As the physical barrier against inhaled air pollutants, airway epithelium is a primary target for PM2.5 and influenza viruses, two major environmental insults. Recent studies have shown that PM2.5 and influenza viruses may interact to aggravate airway inflammation, an essential event in the pathogenesis of diverse pulmonary diseases. Airway epithelium plays a critical role in lung health and disorders. Thus far, the mechanisms for the interactive effect of PM2.5 and the influenza virus on gene transcription of airway epithelial cells have not been fully uncovered. In this present pilot study, the transcriptome sequencing approach was introduced to identify responsive genes following individual and co-exposure to PM2.5 and influenza A (H3N2) viruses in a human bronchial epithelial cell line (BEAS-2B). Enrichment analysis revealed the function of differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Specifically, the DEGs enriched in the xenobiotic metabolism by the cytochrome P450 pathway were linked to PM2.5 exposure. In contrast, the DEGs enriched in environmental information processing and human diseases, such as viral protein interaction with cytokines and cytokine receptors and epithelial cell signaling in bacterial infection, were significantly related to H3N2 exposure. Meanwhile, this study found that co-exposure to PM2.5 and H3N2 may affect G protein-coupled receptors on the cell surface by modulating Ca2+. Thus, the results from this study provides insights into PM2.5- and influenza virus-induced airway inflammation and potential mechanisms