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ROLE OF CARBON VERSUS DIESEL PARTICLES ON PULMONARY INFLAMMATION AND ALLERGIC ADJUVANT EFFECTS IN EXPERIMENTAL ANIMALS.
Impact/Purpose:
This research program specifically supports efforts to (1) Describe the cardiac and pulmonary health effects of model and ambient particulate matter (PM) on various animal models of cardiopulmonary disease; and (2) Define and describe complementary physiologic, pathologic, cell, molecular and biochemical approaches to assessing the long term health effects of PM.
Description:
We have previously demonstrated that residual oil fly ash (ROFA) or its constituent metals can behave as an adjuvant to promote allergic immune responses and asthma-like disease in Brown Norway rats We have further reported that these effects can be reproduced by adminstration of TNF-alpha, and hypothesize that inflammatory cytokines and chemokines generated by airway epithelial cells and macrophages elicit this effect by stimulating local lymphocyte activity. We have since completed studies examining the role of ultrafine and fine carbon black in causing inflammation and adjuvancy and have compared two different sources of diesel particle to compare the potency of these materials which differ significantly in PAH content. In parallel, studies have been completed which show that instillation of ambient PM from a city which has higher incidence allergies, promotes allergic sensitization to a greater extent than PM from a city with low levels of allergy. Ongoing work will develop and airway epithelial cell system to compare animal and human responses from both healthy and asthmatic tissue to determine disease susceptibility factors and species differences after exposure to combustion and ambient PM.