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Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, long non-coding RNA expression, and DNA damage in coke oven workers

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Abstract

Exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) was associated with DNA damage, while the roles of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the associations were unclear. We aimed to assess the association of lncRNA NR_024564 with urinary monohydroxy PAHs (OH-PAHs) and DNA damage among 332 coke oven workers. We determined 12 OH-PAHs by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and the expression level of NR_024564 by droplet digital RT-PCR and DNA damage by the comet assay. In total participants, we found that NR_024564 was not significantly associated with OH-PAHs or comet parameters. However, among workers with ≥ 20 working years, multiple OH-PAHs including urinary 1-hydroxyphenanthrene (1-OHPh), 2-OHPh, 3-OHPh, 9-OHPh, 1‑hydroxypyrene, and total PAH metabolites were related to increased comet parameters. Moreover, NR_024564 was significantly associated with 2-OHPh and four comet parameters. Each 1% increase in 2-OHPh was associated with 0.35% reduction (95% CI: 0.16%, 0.55%) in NR_024564 (P-FDR = 0.005), and 2-OHPh was marginally interacted with working years in relation to NR_024564 decrease. Also, each 1% increment of NR_024564 was related to 0.04–0.13% decrease of Olive tail moment, percent DNA in the comet tail, tail length, and tail moment (all P-FDR < 0.05). Furthermore, low NR_024564 level combined with high levels of 1-OHPh and 2-OHPh or ≥ 20 working years was positively associated with the comet parameters among the total participants. Our results indicated that NR_024564 might be linked to the adverse associations of PAHs with the DNA damage of coke oven workers who worked for ≥ 20 years.

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Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to all the individuals who volunteered to participate in this study.

Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81673139, 81973128).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, Key Laboratory of Environment and Health, Ministry of Education & Ministry of Environmental Protection, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Health (Incubating), School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 13 Hangkong Rd., Wuhan, 430030, Hubei, China

    Jie Yu, Miao Liu & Xiaomin Zhang

  2. Department of Medical Affairs, Zhuhai People’s Hospital (Zhuhai Hospital Affiliated With Jinan University), Zhuhai, 519000, Guangdong, China

    Qin Fang

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  1. Jie Yu
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Contributions

Jie Yu: conceptualization; data curation; methodology; formal analysis; visualization; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing; Miao Liu: methodology, validation, writing—review and editing; Qin Fang: conceptualization, data curation, methodology, validation, writing—review and editing; Xiaomin Zhang: conceptualization, data curation, funding acquisition, resources, supervision, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Xiaomin Zhang.

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This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College. All participants provided written informed consents before enrollment.

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Not applicable.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Yu, J., Liu, M., Fang, Q. et al. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, long non-coding RNA expression, and DNA damage in coke oven workers. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 57277–57286 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19828-1

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