Using salmonid microarrays to understand the dietary modulation of carcinogenesis in rainbow trout

Ultrasonographic measurement of the femoral cartilage thickness in patients with occupational lead exposure

The objective of the present study is to compare distal femoral cartilage thicknesses of patients with occupational lead exposure with those of healthy subjects by using ultrasonography. A total of 48 male workers (a mean age of 34.8±6.8 years and mean body mass index (BMI) of 25.8±3.1 kg/m(2)) with a likely history of occupational lead exposure and age- and BMI-matched healthy male subjects were enrolled. Demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients, that is, age, weight, height, occupation, estimated duration of lead exposure, and smoking habits were recorded. Femoral cartilage thickness was assessed from the midpoints of right medial condyle (RMC), right lateral condyle (RLC), right intercondylar area (RIA), left medial condyle (LMC), left lateral condyle (LLC), and left intercondylar area (LIA) by using ultrasonography. Although the workers had higher femoral cartilage thickness values at all measurement sites when compared with those of the control subjects, the difference reached statistical significance at RLC (P=0.010), LMC (P=0.001), and LIA (P=0.039). There were no correlations between clinical parameters and cartilage-thickness values of the workers. Subjects with a history of lead exposure had higher femoral cartilage thickness as compared with the healthy subjects. Further studies, including histological evaluations, are awaited to clarify the clinical relevance of this increase in cartilage thickness and to explore the long-term follow-up especially with respect to osteoarthritis development.

Whole blood lead levels are associated with radiographic and symptomatic knee osteoarthritis: a cross-sectional analysis in the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project

INTRODUCTION

Lead (Pb) is known to affect bone, and recent evidence suggests that it has effects on cartilage as well. As osteoarthritis (OA) is a highly prevalent disease affecting bone and cartilage, we undertook the present analysis to determine whether whole blood Pb levels are associated with radiographic and symptomatic OA (rOA and sxOA, respectively) of the knee.

METHODS

The analysis was conducted using cross-sectional data from the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project, a rural, population-based study, including whole blood Pb levels, bilateral posteroanterior weight-bearing knee radiography and knee symptom data. rOA assessment included joint-based presence (Kellgren-Lawrence (K-L) grade 2 or higher) and severity (none, K-L grade 0 or 1; mild, K-L grade 2; moderate or severe, K-L grade 3 or 4), as well as person-based laterality (unilateral or bilateral). SxOA was deemed present (joint-based) in a knee on the basis of K-L grade 2 or higher with symptoms, with symptoms rated based on severity (0, rOA without symptoms; 1, rOA with mild symptoms; 2, rOA with moderate or severe symptoms) and in person-based analyses was either unilateral or bilateral. Generalized logit or proportional odds regression models were used to examine associations between the knee OA status variables and natural log-transformed blood Pb (ln Pb), continuously and in quartiles, controlling for age, race, sex, body mass index (BMI), smoking and alcohol drinking.

RESULTS

Those individuals with whole blood Pb data (N = 1,669) had a mean (±SD) age of 65.4 (±11.0) years and a mean BMI of 31.2 (±7.1) kg/m2, including 66.6% women and 35.4% African-Americans, with a median blood Pb level of 1.8 μg/dl (range, 0.3 to 42.0 μg/dl). In joint-based analyses, for every 1-U increase in ln Pb, the odds of prevalent knee rOA were 20% higher (aOR, 1.20; 95% CI, 1.01 to 1.44), while the odds of more severe rOA were 26% higher (aOR, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.50, under proportional odds). In person-based analyses, the odds of bilateral rOA were 32% higher for each 1-U increase in ln Pb (aOR, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.03 to 1.70). Similarly for knee sxOA, for each 1-U increase in ln Pb, the odds of having sxOA were 16% higher, the odds of having more severe symptoms were 17% higher and the odds of having bilateral knee symptoms were 25% higher. Similar findings were obtained with regard to ln Pb in quartiles.

CONCLUSIONS

Increases in the prevalence and severity measures for both radiographically and symptomatically confirmed knee OA (although statistically significant only for rOA) were observed with increasing levels of blood Pb, suggesting that Pb may be a potentially modifiable environmental risk factor for OA.

The individual and combined effects of deoxynivalenol and aflatoxin B₁on primary hepatocytes of Cyprinus carpio

Aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁) and deoxynivalenol (DON) are important food-borne mycotoxins that have been implicated in animal and human health. In this study, individual and combinative effects of AFB₁ and DON were tested in primary hepatocytes of Cyprinus carpio. The results indicated that the combinative effects of AFB₁ and DON (0.01 μg/mL AFB₁ and 0.25 μg/mL DON; 0.02 μg/mL AFB₁ and 0.25 μg/mL DON; 0.02 μg/mL AFB₁ and 0.5 μg/mL DON) were higher than that of individual mycotoxin (P < 0.05). The activity of AST, ALT and LDH in cell supernatant was higher than that of control group (P < 0.05) when the mycotoxins were exposed to primary hepatocytes for 4 h. The decreased cell number was observed in tested group by inverted light microscopy. The mitochondrial swelling, endoplasmic reticulum dilation and a lot of lipid droplets were observed in primary hepatocytes by transmission electron microscope. Therefore, this combination was classified as an additive response of the two mycotoxins.

Protective effect of dietary tomatine against dibenzo[a,l]pyrene (DBP)-induced liver and stomach tumors in rainbow trout

The potential anti-carcinogenic effects of tomatine, a mixture of commercial tomato glycoalkaloids alpha-tomatine and dehydrotomatine (10:1), were examined in the rainbow trout chemoprevention model. Prior to the chemoprevention study, a preliminary toxicity study revealed that tomatine in the diet fed daily at doses from 100 to 2000 parts per million (ppm) for 4 weeks was not toxic to trout. For the tumor study, replicate groups of 105 trout were fed diets containing dibenzo[a,l]pyrene (DBP) alone (224 ppm), (N = 3), DBP plus tomatine at 2000 ppm (N = 2), tomatine alone (N = 2), or control diet (N = 2) for 4 weeks. The fish were then returned to control diet for 8 months and necropsied for histopathology. Dietary tomatine was found to reduce DBP-initiated liver tumor incidence from 37.0 to 19.0% and stomach tumor incidence from 46.4 to 29.4%. Tomatine also reduced stomach tumor multiplicity. The tomatine-containing diets did not induce mortality, change in fish weights, or liver weights. No adverse pathological effects in the tissues of the fish on the tomatine diets were observed. Dose-response and chemopreventive mechanisms for tomatine protection remain to be examined. This is the first report on the anticarcinogenic effects of tomatine in vivo.