Across-shift changes in upper airways after exposure to bacterial cell wall components

Abstract

Introduction. To assess the across-shift changes of cytokine concentrations in nasal lavage (NAL) samples were collected from workers exposed to bacterial cell wall components present in organic dust in three different occupational environments. Materials and method. The study was conducted in 38 employees including 10 workers from a municipal waste sorting plant (WSP), 20 from a sewage treatment plant (STP) and 8 from an office building (OB), who were established as a reference group, not exposed to organic dust. Interleukins 1β (IL-1β), 6 (IL-6), 8 (IL-8) and tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) were examined in NAL before and after work shift on Wednesdays. Bioaerosol exposure was determined by personal measurements and analysed for organic dust, endotoxins (END) and peptidoglycans (PGN). Results. The analysis included the results for IL-8 only, because for the other cytokines their concentrations in 80% of cases were below the detection level. The most polluted were the workplaces in WSP with average concentrations of organic dust -3.47 mg/m 3 , END -96.31 ng/m 3 and PGN -571.88 ng/m 3 . The results of IL-8 showed a significant difference between the studied groups after the work shift (p=0.007). Among WSP workers concentrations of IL-8 increased also significantly (p=0.015) during the work shift. Multivariate analysis showed that organic dust and END were the factors that in the most distinct way (p<0.001) influenced changes of IL-8 levels in NAL. Conclusions. Each alteration in the composition of bioaerosols will probably determine the changes in the mechanisms responsible for both formation and modulation of inflammatory reactions in exposed workers.

Bioaerosol Exposure during Sorting of Municipal Solid, Commercial and Industrial Waste: Concentration Levels, Size Distribution, and Biodiversity of Airborne Fungal

“…In the other areas, mass concentrations were between >0.1 and 1 mg/m 3 . These stationary sampling concentrations are close to some examples reported in previously published studies, which reported ambient concentrations between LOD to 13.33 mg/m 3 in the waste treatment sector of different countries [6,11,20,33,35,36].…”

“…Such levels of personal exposure to inhalable dust for workers in WSPs corroborate previous findings. Indeed, personal exposure to inhalable dust among WPS workers has been investigated for WSPs located in Denmark, Poland, Germany, England and Wales, Korea, the Netherlands, France, and Canada [6,8,10,12,20,[38][39][40]45,[67][68][69]. They revealed personal exposure levels from 0.1 to 62.6 mg/m 3 with a wide range of variation between studies.…”

“…In addition, studies have allowed investigation of the size distribution of airborne microorganisms (SDAM) found in the air of WSPs and their deposition in the lungs of workers [16][17][18]. Several studies have also encouraged the completion of the measurement strategy of health effect indicators [19][20][21]. Indeed, gathering information on exposure levels, SDAM, and taxa composition of microbial communities in bioaerosols from WSPs during a measurement campaign appears to be a helpful approach to improve the interpretation of measurements in terms of risk.…”

Occupational Diseases among Sanitary Workers in Worldwide: Systematic Review

“…Several of these studies reported on acute and/or chronic symptoms, including bronchitis, cough, and nose irritation or wheezing common among sanitary workers. They had occupation related lung diseases (Ajay et al, 2014); exposed with proinflammatory mediators; interleukin concentrations (Cyprowski, 2019).…”