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Post-Effect of Air Quality Improvement on Biomarkers for Systemic Inflammation and Microparticles in Asthma Patients After the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games: a Pilot Study

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Abstract

This study’s aim was to investigate the post-effect of an air quality improvement on systemic inflammation and circulating microparticles in asthmatic patients during, and 2 months after, the Beijing Olympics 2008. We measured the levels of circulating inflammatory cytokines and microparticles in the peripheral blood from asthma patients and healthy controls during (phase 1), and 2 months after (phase 2) the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The concentrations of circulating cytokines (including TNFα, IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10) were still seen reduced in phase 2 when compared with those in phase 1. The number of circulating endothelial cell-derived microparticles was significantly lower during the phase 2 than that during phase 1 in asthma patients. The level of plasma lipopolysaccharide-binding protein (LBP) was significantly decreased in asthmatics in phase 2. The level of norepinephrine was significantly higher in phase 2 than that in phase 1 in plasma from both asthma patients and healthy subjects. There were no significant differences in the gene profile for the toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling from peripheral blood mononuclear cells. In vitro, microvesicles from patients with asthma impaired the relaxation to bradykinin and contraction to acetylcholine, whereas microparticles from healthy subjects did not. These data suggested that reduction in systemic pro-inflammatory responses and circulating LBP and increased level of norepinephrine in asthma patients persisted even after 2 months of the air pollution intervention. These changes were independent of the TLR signaling pathway. Circulating microparticles might be associated with airway smooth muscle dysfunction.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China grant (nos. 81170040 and 81470229 to J. Gao), National Institute of Health grants (ES016588, ES017412, ES018900 to Q. Sun).

The authors acknowledge Professor Roy Pleasants of Duke University for critical reading and editing of this manuscript. The authors thank Yi Ma for the technical support in the measurement of lung function and Ms. Jessica Ruby for editing of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Respiratory Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100730, China

    Jinming Gao & Lei Jiang

  2. Division of Environmental Health Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Xiaohua Xu & Qinghua Sun

  3. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Zhekang Ying, Aixia Wang & Qinghua Sun

  4. Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, Tuxedo, NY, USA

    Mianhua Zhong & Lung-Chi Chen

  5. Division of Biostatistics, College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Bo Lu

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Correspondence to Jinming Gao.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Gao, J., Xu, X., Ying, Z. et al. Post-Effect of Air Quality Improvement on Biomarkers for Systemic Inflammation and Microparticles in Asthma Patients After the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games: a Pilot Study. Inflammation 40, 1214–1224 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10753-017-0564-y

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