气候变化领域集成服务门户

Epidemiological studies have demonstrated associations of chronic respiratory disease with near-roadway pollutant exposure, effects that were independent of those of regional air pollutants. However, there has been limited study of the potential mechanisms for near roadway effects. Therefore, we examined the in vitro effect of respirable particulate matter (PM) collected adjacent to a major Los Angeles freeway and at an urban background location. PM was collected on filters during two consecutive 15-day periods. Oxidative stress and inflammatory response (intracellular reactive oxygen species [ROS], IL-1 beta, IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-alpha) to PM aqueous extract was assessed in THP-1 cells, a model for evaluating monocyte/macrophage lineage cell responses. The near-roadway PM induced statistically significantly higher levels of IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-alpha (P < 0.01) and a near significant increase in IL-1 beta (P = 0.06) but did not induce ROS activity (P = 0.17). The contrast between urban background and near-roadway PM-induced inflammatory cytokines was similar in magnitude to that corresponding to temporal differences between the two collection periods. PM-induced proinflammatory protein expression was attenuated by antioxidant pretreatment, and PM stimulation enhanced the activity of protein kinases, including extracellular signal-regulated kinase and c-Jun N-terminal kinase. Pretreatment of THP-1 cells with kinase inhibitors reduced PM-induced proinflammatory mediator expression. The proinflammatory response was also reduced by pretreatment with polymyxin B, suggesting a role for endotoxin. However, the patterns of PM-induced protein kinase response and the attenuation of inflammatory responses by antioxidant or polymyxin B pretreatment did not vary between near-roadway and urban background locations. We conclude that near-roadway PM produced greater inflammatory response than urban background PM, a finding consistent with emerging epidemiologic findings, but these differences were not explained by PM endotoxin content or by MAPK pathways. Nevertheless, THP-1 cells may be a model for the development of biologically relevant metrics of long-term spatial variation in exposure for study of chronic disease.