Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the association among polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) exposure and air pollutants and the diversity of microbiota. Daily average concentrations of six common air pollutants were obtained from China National Environmental Monitoring Centre. The PAHs exposure levels were evaluated by external and internal exposure detection methods, including monitoring atmospheric PAHs and urinary hydroxyl-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (OH-PAH) metabolite levels. We analyzed the diversity of environmental and commensal bacterial communities with 16S rRNA gene sequencing and performed functional enrichment with Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States (PICRUSt) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). Correlation analysis and logistic regression modeling were conducted to evaluate the relationship of PAHs levels with air pollutants and microbial diversity. Correlation analysis found that the concentrations of atmospheric PAHs were significantly positively correlated with those of PM10, NO2, and SO2. There also was a positive correlation between the abundance of the genus Micrococcus (Actinobacteria) and high molecular weight PAHs, and Bacillus, such as genera and low molecular weight PAHs in the atmosphere. Logistic regression showed that the level of urinary 1-OHPyrene was associated with childhood asthma after sex and age adjustment. The level of urinary 1-OHPyrene was significantly positively correlated with that of PM2.5 and PM10. In addition, the level of 1-OHPyrene was positively correlated with oral Prevotella-7 abundance. Functional enrichment analysis demonstrated that PAHs exposure may disturb signaling pathways by the imbalance of commensal microbiota, such as purine metabolism, pyrimidine metabolites, lipid metabolism, and one carbon pool by folate, which may contribute to public health issues. Our results confirmed that atmospheric PAHs and urinary 1-OHPyrene were correlated with part of six common air pollutants and indicated that PAHs pollution may alter both environmental and commensal microbiota communities associated with health-related problems. The potential health and environmental impacts of PAHs should be further explored.
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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Change history
30 March 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00244-021-00822-6
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Funding
The National Natural Science Foundation of China (81728018 and 81530088), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20161571), Natural Science Foundation of the Higher Education Institution of Jiangsu Province (16KJA330002), and the open project of the key laboratory of modern toxicology of ministry education Nanjing Medical University (NMUAMT201802) supported this work. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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Jinye Hu and Yuling Bao have equal contributions to the work.
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Conceived and designed the experiments: QW and LL. Performed the experiments: JYH, YQZ, RO, MFS, LW, and SYC. Analyzed the data: JYH and QW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: YLB, ZZ, QW, and LL. wrote the paper: JYH. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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The Nanjing Medical University Clinical Research Ethics Committee, Nanjing, China, reviewed and approved the protocols of this study. Informed consent was obtained from the participants for the use of samples in this study.
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Fig. S1
Geographic coordinates for the sampling point. The sampling point was located in the entrance of Nanjing Medical University, Jiangning District, Nanjing, China. The black star represented the sampling point. (PNG 202 kb)
Fig. S2
Comparison of microbial diversity between the asthmatic and control groups. A and B: represented alpha diversity with Chao and ACE indices. C: PLS-DA on OTU level. COMP1 represented the principle feature vector, and COMP2 represented the secondary feature vector. *P < 0.05, ***P < 0.001. (TIFF 767 kb)
Fig. S3
Correlations of differential bacteria on genus and inferred metagenomic functions. Spearman correlation was performed for differential oral microbiota (Prevotella-7 and Veillonella) and KEGG pathway abundance. The heatmap was drawn with RStudio (version 1.0.143). Significant squares were marked with *P < 0.05 and **P < 0.01. (TIFF 772 kb)
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Hu, J., Bao, Y., Zhu, Y. et al. The Preliminary Study on the Association Between PAHs and Air Pollutants and Microbiota Diversity. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 79, 321–332 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00244-020-00757-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00244-020-00757-4