Discipline: Ecology Environmental and Earth Sciences
Subcategory: Cell and Molecular Biology
Session: 2
Room: Hoover
Ayat Ali - Texas Southern University
Indoor dust in the house can be a significant pathway for human exposure to toxic contaminants. House dust is a complex mixture of particles with organic and inorganic pollutants, such as heavy metals, smoke residues, pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, flame retardants, and plasticizers. Depending on the size and the composition, house dust has been associated with different toxicological effects because of its ability to modify several biological activities, activate different cellular pathways, and induce DNA adducts. All these alterations can lead to respiratory diseases like asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and cancer. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of house dust on viability, cytotoxicity and apoptosis in normal human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B). Samples of house dust were acquired by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, USA), which are SRM 2584 (Trace Elements in Indoor Dust, 1% lead), and SRM 2585 (Organic Contaminants in House Dust). This research covers the viability, cytotoxicity, and apoptosis of BEAS-2B cells after exposure to various dust concentrations using MTT assay, LDH-Glo cytotoxicity assay, and the Triplex assay. Our study showed that house dust caused a dose dependent decrease in cell viability, however only higher concentrations of dusts (100-500 ?g/ml) can cause cytotoxic effects. House dust induced apoptotic death after exposure to 75 and 100?g/ml of dust for 24 hours. Our results showed that the organic house dust has stronger cytotoxic effect on BEAS-2B cells than the trace elements dust. Future research involves the effects of house dust on reactive oxygen species generation and proinflammatory cellular pathways.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Texas Southern University (TSU) under the award numbers HRD-1622993, BCS-1831205, and HRD-1829184
Faculty Advisor: Shishir Shishodia, shishir.shishodia@tsu.edu
Role: I did all the parts of this research, the cell culturing, viability tests, cytotoxicity test, and apoptosis test