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CARDIOVASCULAR FUNCTIONAL, CELLULAR, AND MOLECULAR EFFECTS INDUCED BY EMISSION SOURCE PARTICLE CONSTITUENTS
Impact/Purpose:
These studies provide mechanistic evidence for cardiovascular effects of particulate matter (PM), thus supporting associative evidence from epidemiological studies of increased risk of cardiac dysfunction due to PM exposure.
Description:
Epidemiological, clinical and toxicological studies have demonstrated the ability of ambient PM and certain emission source particles to altered autonomic control of the heart and induce arrhythmia. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain these effects such as direct effect of PM on the autonomic nervous system; systemic release of biological mediators following acute PM lung injury; systemic distribution of pulmonary deposited PM. Based on previous PM toxicology studies conducted in this laboratory, we have proposed that dissolution and systemic distribution of bioavailable PM constituents mediate their effects directly on the heart. In addition, it is not known what adverse cellular and molecular effects PM and its constituents may have on the heart following acute and chronic exposures. In vivo and in vitro PM studies are being conducted to determine: 1) what adverse cardiac functional, cellular and molecular effects are induced by specific emission source particle constituents derived from oil, coal and diesel combustion; and 2) the mechanism(s) by which emission source constituents mediate these effects. Initial studies examined the cardiac effects associated with oil combustion particles (ROFA) due to the established health effects database on the cardiac effects associated with this emission source in healthy and compromised animals.