Wildland fires contribute significantly to the ambient air pollution burden worldwide, causing a range of adverse health effects in exposed populations. The toxicity of woodsmoke, a complex mixture of gases, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter, is commonly studied in vitro using isolated exposures of conventionally cultured lung cells to either resuspended particulate matter or organic solvent extracts of smoke, leading to incomplete toxicity evaluations. This study aimed to improve our understanding of the effects of woodsmoke inhalation by building an advanced in vitro exposure system that emulates human exposure of the airway epithelium. We report the development and characterization of an innovative system that permits live-cell monitoring of the intracellular redox status of differentiated primary human bronchial epithelial cells cultured at an air–liquid interface (pHBEC-ALI) as they are exposed to unfractionated woodsmoke generated in a tube furnace in real time. pHBEC-ALI exposed to freshly generated woodsmoke showed oxidative changes that were dose-dependent and reversible, and not attributable to carbon monoxide exposure. These findings show the utility of this novel system for studying the molecular initiating events underlying woodsmoke-induced toxicity in a physiologically relevant in vitro model, and its potential to provide biological plausibility for risk assessment and public health measures.

中文翻译：

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监测气液界面处暴露于木烟的人气道上皮细胞的氧化还原应激

荒地火灾严重加剧了全球环境空气污染负担，对暴露人群的健康造成了一系列不利影响。木烟是气体、挥发性有机化合物和颗粒物的复杂混合物，其毒性通常通过将传统培养的肺细胞单独暴露于再悬浮颗粒物或烟雾的有机溶剂提取物中来进行体外研究，从而导致毒性评估不完整。这项研究旨在通过建立一个先进的体外暴露系统来模拟人类气道上皮的暴露，从而提高我们对吸入木烟的影响的理解。我们报告了一种创新系统的开发和表征，该系统允许对在空气-液体界面（pHBEC-ALI）培养的分化的原代人支气管上皮细胞暴露于在空气中产生的普通木烟中时的细胞内氧化还原状态进行活细胞监测。实时管式炉。暴露于新鲜产生的木烟的 pHBEC-ALI 表现出氧化变化，该变化是剂量依赖性的且可逆的，并且不能归因于一氧化碳暴露。这些发现表明，该新系统可用于在生理相关的体外模型中研究木烟引起的毒性的分子起始事件，以及为风险评估和公共卫生措施提供生物学合理性的潜力。