Impact of mixtures of persistent organic pollutants on breast cancer aggressiveness

Relationship between prenatal metals exposure and neurodevelopment in one-year-old infants in the CLIMB study

BACKGROUND

Prenatal metals exposure and its effects on infant neurodevelopment have garnered significant attention. However, most studies focus on individual metals, neglecting combined effects.

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to assess the effects of both single and combined prenatal metals exposure on one-year-old infants' neurodevelopment.

METHODS

This study included 189 mother-infant pairs from the Complex Lipids in Mothers and Babies (CLIMB) cohort. The concentrations of 21 metallic elements and 2 metalloids in umbilical cord blood (UCB) serum were measured using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Neurodevelopment was measured using Chinese version of Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) for the Psychomotor Development Index (PDI) and the Mental Development Index (MDI). Multiple statistical methods, including linear models, restricted cubic splines (RCS), weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression, and Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR).

RESULTS

After adjusting for potential confounders, prenatal arsenic (As) and strontium (Sr) levels were associated with lower PDI scores (As: β = -2.324; 95 % CI: -4.61, -0.04; Sr: β = -2.426; 95 % CI: -4.67, -0.18) by linear regression, while Sr was associated with lower MDI scores (β = -2.841; 95 % CI: -5.44, -0.25). RCS models revealed nonlinear dose-response relationships between manganese (Mn) and calcium (Ca) with PDI, and for Mn, As, and zirconium (Zr) with MDI. Interactions between certain metals were also identified. Metals mixture had an overall negative effect on both PDI and MDI scores, with Mn being the primary contributor.

CONCLUSION

Prenatal exposure to selected metals or metal mixtures is associated with poorer neurodevelopment in one-year-old infants.

Investigating phenotypic plasticity due to toxicants with exposure disparities in primary human breast cells in vitro

Introduction

Breast cancer is the second most diagnosed cancer, as well as the primary cause of cancer death in women worldwide. Of the different breast cancer subtypes, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is particularly aggressive and is associated with poor prognosis. Black women are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with TNBCs than white women. Recent experimental evidence suggests that basal-like TNBCs may derive from luminal cells which acquire basal characteristics through phenotypic plasticity, a newly recognized hallmark of cancer. Whether chemical exposures can promote phenotypic plasticity in breast cells is poorly understood.

Methods

To investigate further, we developed a high-content immunocytochemistry assay using normal human breast cells to test whether chemical exposures can impact luminal/basal plasticity by unbiased quantification of keratin 14 (KRT14), a basal-myoepithelial marker; keratin 8 (KRT8), a luminal-epithelial marker; and Hoechst 33342, a DNA marker. Six cell lines established from healthy tissue from donors to the Susan G. Komen Normal Tissue Bank were exposed for 48 hours to three different concentrations (0.1μM, 1μM, and 10μM) of eight ubiquitous chemicals (arsenic, BPA, BPS, cadmium, copper, DDE, lead, and PFNA), with documented exposure disparities in US Black women, in triplicate. Automated fluorescence image quantification was performed using Cell Profiler software, and a random-forest classifier was trained to classify individual cells as KRT8 positive, KRT14 positive, or hybrid (both KRT8 and KRT14 positive) using Cell Profiler Analyst.

Results and discussion

Results demonstrated significant concentration-dependent increases in hybrid populations in response to BPA, BPS, DDE, and PFNA. The increase in hybrid populations expressing both KRT14 and KRT8 is indicative of a phenotypically plastic progenitor-like population in line with known theories of carcinogenesis. Furthermore, BPA, BPS, DDE, and copper produced significant increases in cell proliferation, which could be indicative of a more malignant phenotype. These results further elucidate the relationship between chemical exposure and breast phenotypic plasticity and highlight potential environmental factors that may impact TNBC risk.

A comprehensive multiplatform metabolomic analysis reveals alterations of 2-hydroxybutyric acid among women with deep endometriosis related to the pesticide trans-nonachlor

BACKGROUND

Exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) has been related to the risk of endometriosis however the mechanisms remain unclear. The objective of the present study was to characterize the metabolic profiles underpinning the associations between POPs and endometriosis risk.

METHODOLOGY

A hospital-based case-control study was conducted in France to recruit women with and without surgically confirmed deep endometriosis. Women's serum was analyzed using gas and liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) to measure the levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorinated pesticides (OCPs) and per-/polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). A comprehensive metabolomic profiling was conducted using targeted HRMS and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) to cover polar and non-polar fractions. A "meet-in-the-middle" statistical framework was applied to identify the metabolites related to endometriosis and POP levels, using multivariate linear and logistic regressions adjusting for confounding variables.

RESULTS

Fourteen PCBs, six OCPs and six PFAS were widely found in almost all serum samples. The pesticide trans-nonachlor was the POP most strongly and positively associated with deep endometriosis risk, with odds ratio (95 % confidence interval) of 2.42 (1.49; 4.12), followed by PCB180 and 167. Women with endometriosis exhibited a distinctive metabolic profile, with elevated serum levels of lactate, ketone bodies and multiple amino acids and lower levels of bile acids, phosphatidylcholines (PCs), cortisol and hippuric acid. The metabolite 2-hydroxybutyrate was simultaneously associated to endometriosis risk and exposure to trans-nonachlor.

CONCLUSIONS

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive metabolome-wide association study of endometriosis, integrating ultra-trace profiling of POPs. The results confirmed a metabolic alteration among women with deep endometriosis that could be also associated to the exposure to POPs. Further observational and experimental studies will be required to delineate the causal ordering of those associations and gain insight on the underlying mechanisms.

The Fallout of Catastrophic Technogenic Emissions of Toxic Gases Can Negatively Affect Covid-19 Clinical Course

The coronavirus D-19 (Covid-19) pandemic has shaken almost every country in the world: as we stand, 6,3 million deaths from the infection have already been recorded, 167,000 and 380,000 of which are in Italy and the Russian Federation, respectively. In the first wave of the pandemic, Italy suffered an abnormally high death toll. A detailed analysis of available epidemiological data suggests that that rate was shockingly high in the Northern regions and in Lombardy, in particular, whilst in the southern region the situation was less dire. This inexplicably high mortality rate in conditions of a very well-developed health care system such as the one in Lombardy - recognized as one of the best in Italy - certainly cries for a convincing explanation. In 1976, the small city of Seveso, Lombardy, experienced a release of dioxin into the atmosphere after a massive technogenic accident. The immediate effects of the industrial disaster did not become apparent until a surge in the number of tumors in the affected population in the subsequent years. In this paper, we endeavor to prove our hypothesis that the release of dioxin was a negative cofactor that contributed to a worsening of the clinical course of COVID-19 in Lombardy.