Abstract
Organic dust and related microbial exposures are the main inducers of several respiratory symptoms. Occupational exposure to organic dust is very common and has been reported in diverse settings. In vitro tests using relevant cell cultures can be very useful for characterizing the toxicity of complex mixtures present in the air of occupational environments such as organic dust. In this study, the cell viability and the inflammatory response, as measured by the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) and interleukin-1 β (IL-1β), were determined in human macrophages derived from THP-1 monocytic cells. These cells were exposed to air samples from five occupational settings known to possess high levels of contamination of organic dust: poultry and swine feed industries, waste sorting, poultry production and slaughterhouses. Additionally, fungi and particle contamination of those settings was studied to better characterize the organic dust composition. All air samples collected from the assessed workplaces caused both cytotoxic and pro-inflammatory effects. The highest responses were observed in the feed industry, particularly in swine feed production. This study emphasizes the importance of measuring the organic dust/mixture effects in occupational settings and suggests that differences in the organic dust content may result in differences in health effects for exposed workers.
Highlights
Organic dust is usually defined as an airborne mixture of viable and non-viable microorganisms, their metabolites and solid particles of vegetable and animal origin [1,2]
The objective of this study was to evaluate the relation between the presence of organic dust in different occupational settings and the occurrence of proinflammatory effects
The waste sorting plant had one sampling site that exceeded the limits of the guideline proposed by World Health Organization (WHO) [34]
Summary
Organic dust is usually defined as an airborne mixture of viable and non-viable microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa), their metabolites (endotoxins, glucans, mycotoxins, peptidoglycans, enzymes etc.) and solid particles of vegetable and animal origin (allergens, including pollens, vegetal fibers, epidermis etc.) [1,2]. Organic dust and related microbial exposures are the main inducers of several respiratory symptoms, such as decline in lung function, asthma, chronic bronchitis, bronchial hyper-responsiveness, wheeze, and cough [1,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Occupational exposure to organic dust is very common and has been reported in several diverse settings. Published work showed that in slaughterhouses there is occupational exposure to organic dust [12,20]. Despite an apparent adaptation response of workers repeatedly exposed to organic dust [21,22,23], they still experience a high prevalence of respiratory disease and a significant decline in lung function [24,25]
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