Identification of Candidate Exposure Biomarkers for Toxicants in Complex Environmental Matrices

Abstract

The term "biomarker" refers to an indicator employed to monitor the interactions between a xenobiotic and an individual, provide information of an individual's biologic state, or refer to an individual's susceptibility to a xenobiotic, condition or disease. They are currently employed to assess exposure to, or effects from, environmental toxicants. It is important to have biomarkers that can accurately and precisely assess complex mixture exposures, since environmental exposures to single substances rarely occur outside the laboratory setting, and complex exposures are often associated with specific occupational or environmental settings. This project employed microarray technology and subsequent bioinformatic analyses to identify candidate biomarkers of in vitro exposure to coal tar extract. Murine pulmonary epithelial cells were exposed to coal tar extract and gene expression was assessed using microarrays. The results showed that expression of genes involved in steroidogenesis, cytokine-cytokine interaction, angiogenesis, as well as several genes that code for secreted proteins, were altered by coal tar exposure. The entire work constitutes the initial stages of a project that will ultimately identify gene expression and secretome profiles that are specific to coal tar exposure.