Metabolomic Characterization of Laborers Exposed to Welding Fumes

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• 作者：Ching-Hua Kuo ; Kuo-Ching Wang ; Tze-Feng Tian ; Mong-Hsun Tsai ; Yin-Mei Chiung ; Chun-Ming Hsiech ; Sung-Jeng Tsai ; San-Yuan Wang ; Dong-Ming Tsai ; Chiang-Ching Huang ; Y. Jane Tseng
• 刊名：Chemical Research in Toxicology
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：March 19, 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：25
• 期：3
• 页码：676-686
• 全文大小：431K
• 年卷期：v.25,no.3(March 19, 2012)
• ISSN：1520-5010

文摘

The complex composition of welding fumes, multiplicity of molecular targets, diverse cellular effects, and lifestyles associated with laborers vastly complicate the assessment of welding fume exposure. The urinary metabolomic profiles of 35 male welders and 16 male office workers at a Taiwanese shipyard were characterized via ¹H NMR spectroscopy and pattern recognition methods. Blood samples for the same 51 individuals were also collected, and the expression levels of the cytokines and other inflammatory markers were examined. This study dichotomized the welding exposure variable into high (welders) versus low (office workers) exposures to examine the differences of continuous outcome markers鈥攎etabolites and inflammatory markers鈥攂etween the two groups. Fume particle assessments showed that welders were exposed to different concentrations of chromium, nickel, and manganese particles. Multivariate statistical analysis of urinary metabolomic patterns showed higher levels of glycine, taurine, betaine/TMAO, serine, S-sulfocysteine, hippurate, gluconate, creatinine, and acetone and lower levels of creatine among welders, while only TNF-伪 was significantly associated with welding fume exposure among all cytokines and other inflammatory markers measured. Of the identified metabolites, the higher levels of glycine, taurine, and betaine among welders were suspected to play some roles in modulating inflammatory and oxidative tissue injury processes. In this metabolomics experiment, we also discovered that the association of the identified metabolites with welding exposure was confounded by smoking, but not with drinking, which is a finding consistent with known modified response of inflammatory markers among smokers. Our results correspond with prior studies that utilized nonmetabolomic analytical techniques and suggest that the metabolomic profiling is an efficient method to characterize the overall effect of welding fume exposure and other confounders.