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URINARY MUTAGENICITY IN CHARCOAL WORKERS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY IN NORTHEASTERN BRAZIL
Citation:
Katona, V., M. Kato, D M. DeMarini, L R. Brooks, A. B. Carvalho, M. Rego, AND D. Loomis. URINARY MUTAGENICITY IN CHARCOAL WORKERS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY IN NORTHEASTERN BRAZIL. Presented at ISEA/ISEE Symposium, Vancouver, BC Canada, 08/11-15/2002.
Description:
Urinary Mutagenicity in charcoal workers: a cross-sectional study in northeastern Brazil
Charcoal production by wood carbonization is an ancient process that has changed little since the Bronze Age. Its production in large scale is necessary to sustain some steel and pig-iron industries. Brazil has the largest production of wood charcoal in the world, and 3.6 million tons of wood are burned yearly to supply local pig-iron industries. Approximately 110,000 workers are linked directly to the production and transportation of charcoal. The charcoal- producing kilns are not designed to recover by-product gases or condensable products, and the finished charcoal is removed manually, exposing the workers to wood smoke as well as to charcoal dust. Among other agents, the workers are exposed to aldehydes, phenols, methoxyphenols, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Although the use of charcoal in steel industries, as well as the resulting devastation of native vegetation have been debated in economic and ecologic fora, the health effects of the workers in charcoal production have rarely been discussed or investigated. No single study that correlates this activity to genetic damage using molecular biology techniques is available in the literature. Thus, we designed a cross-sectional molecular epidemiology study to investigate the health of workers in this industry in northeastern Brazil. We used the Salmonella (Ames) mutagenicity assay to evaluate the urinary mutagenicity of 74 male workers involved in wood-cutting and transport (non-exposed) and charcoal production (exposed). Urine (~50 ml per subject) was enzymatically hydrolyzed overnight, and the organics were extracted by C 18/methanol and solvent-exchanged into dimethyl sulfoxide for bioassay. Frameshift strain YG 1041 (hisDJO52, ifa, fJuvrB, pKM101) of Salmonella that also contains acetyltransferase and nitro reductase activities was used in the standard plate-incorporation assay. Mutagenic potencies were calculated from the linear portion of the dose-response curves and corrected for creatinine levels. The average (SD) revertants/umol creatinine in the exposed group (n = 38) was 5.43 (5.98) and in the non-exposed group (n = 36) was 2.44 (2.71). Using the Wilcoxon-Mann- Whitney test, these results were significantly different (p = 0.006); the distribution of smokers was similar in both groups (p = 0.380). These results indicate that exposure to mutagenic organics from charcoal production, mostly likely P AHs, are absorbed systemically by workers in this industry .Additional biomarkers that will be examined among this population include levels of DNA adducts in peripheralleucocytes using 32p- postlabeling and levels of hydroxylated P AHs in the urine.
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