Toxicology

Biography

Biography: Nilmara de Oliveira Alves

Abstract

Atmospheric pollution is an environmental risk factor in large urban centers. São Paulo Metropolitan Area (SPMA), located in the southeast of Brazil, has a population of nearly 20 million people and 8 million vehicles.It is long known that exposure to air pollutants can cause various health effects such as increased inflammatory response and DNA damage. One of the most versatile defense mechanisms against the accumulation of DNA damage is the nucleotide excision repair (NER), which includes the XPC protein.Different studies have shown that knockout mice in the XPC gene have an increased occurrenceof lung tumors.However, the effects of DNA damage caused by air pollutants regarding the lung inflammatory response are largely unknown. In this study, we injected intravenouslyIntercellular Adhesion Molecule-1(anti-ICAM-1) targeted nanoparticles and evaluated the response using IVIS spectrum. Mice were exposed an accumulated dose (concentration vs time of exposure in hours) of 600 µg.m-3during 1 hour, which corresponds to an average concentration of 25 µg.m-3in 24 hours.The next day after exposure, we observeda significantly stronger fluorescent marker for anti-ICAM in the polluted group than the filtered air group. Furthermore, among the animals exposed to ambient pollution, XPC mice have shown a stronger inflammatory response relative to wild mice. The expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the lungs is currently being evaluated.These data demonstrate that exposure to ambient air pollution in São Paulo promotes the acute inflammatory responses in mice, especially in knockout mice in the XPC gene.