Abstract
Acrylonitrile is an IARC class 2B carcinogen present in cigarette smoke. Urinary 2-cyanoethylmercapturic acid (CEMA) is an acrylonitrile metabolite and a potential biomarker for acrylonitrile exposure. The objective of this work was to study the dose response of CEMA in urine of non-smokers and smokers of different ISO tar yield cigarettes. We observed that smokers excreted >100-fold higher amounts of urinary CEMA than non-smokers. The CEMA levels in smokers were significantly correlated with ISO tar yield, daily cigarette consumption, and urinary biomarkers of smoke exposure. In conclusion, urinary CEMA is a suitable biomarker for assessing smoking-related exposure to acrylonitrile.
Highlights
Acrylonitrile is used in the production of acrylic and modacrylic fibers, copolymers, adipinonitrile, acrylamide and other industrial chemicals (IARC, 1979; International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 1999)
Smoke chemistry - To demonstrate that the selected products (1, 4, and 10 mg ISO tar) yielded different amounts of acrylonitrile, mainstream smoke acrylonitrile levels were quantified under the ISO and Massachusetts smoking regime
The development of accurate methods and careful characterization of biomarkers specificity, sensitivity, and ability to denote a doseresponse relationship which is understood on a mechanistic basis is essential (IOM, 2001)
Summary
Acrylonitrile is used in the production of acrylic and modacrylic fibers, copolymers, adipinonitrile, acrylamide and other industrial chemicals (IARC, 1979; IARC, 1999). General population exposure to acrylonitrile is limited to tobacco smoke, accidental fires, and residual acrylonitrile in commercial polymeric material (Leonard et al, 1999). Tobacco smoke is by far the major non-occupational source for acrylonitrile exposure. Ranges for mainstream smoke yields were reported to amount to 4.4 – 11.9 and 7.8 – 39.1 μg/cigarette when machine smoked with ISO and Massachusetts smoking parameters, respectively (IARC, 2004). The corresponding sidestream smoke yields amount to 24.1 – 85.6 μg/ cigarette (IARC, 2004). The ambient air concentration of acrylonitrile due to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) was estimated to be 0.1-1.9 μg/m3 (Miller et al, 1998; Jenkins et al, 2000)
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