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Airborne Bacteria Enriched PM2.5 Enhances the Inflammation in an Allergic Adolescent Mouse Model Induced by Ovalbumin

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Abstract

Air pollution events frequently occur in China during the winter. Most investigations of pollution studies have focused on the physical and chemical properties of PM2.5. Many of these studies have indicated that PM2.5 exacerbates asthma or eosinophil inflammation. However, few studies have evaluated the relationship between bacterial loads in PM2.5, and especially pathogenic bacteria and childhood asthma. Airborne PM2.5 samples from heavily polluted air were collected in Hangzhou, China between December 2014 and January 2015. PM2.5 and ovalbumin (OVA) were intratracheally administered twice in 4-week intervals to induce the allergic pulmonary inflammation in adolescent C57/BL6 mice. PM2.5 exposure caused neutrophilic alveolitis and bronchitis. In the presence of OVA, the levels of the Th2 cytokines IL-4, IL-12, and IL-17 were significantly increased in bronchoalveolar lavage fluids (BALF) after PM2.5 exposure, while eosinophil infiltration and mucin secretion were also induced. In addition to adjuvant effects on OVA-induced allergic inflammation, PM2.5 exposure also led to the maturation of dendritic cells. These results suggest that PM2.5 exposure may aggravate lung eosinophilia and that PM2.5-bound microbial can exacerbate allergic and inflammatory lung diseases.

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Abbreviations

BHR:

bronchial hyper-responsiveness

PM:

particulate matter

OVA:

ovalbumin

BALF:

bronchoalveolar lavage fluid

IL:

interleukin

DC:

dendritic cell

IFN-γ:

interferon-γ

TNF-α:

tumor necrosis factor-α

EOS:

eosinophil

NEU:

neutrophil

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Acknowledgments

The first author wishes to thank all members of the Tang laboratory for their help during the entire experiment. We are also grateful to Li Liu, Jiajia Wang, and Jin Chen (Core Facilities, Zhejiang University School of Medicine) for flow cytometry technical assistance and process analysis, in addition to Ruhuan Mei (Basic Medicinal Experimental Teaching Platform, Zhejiang University School of Medicine) for assisting in the isolation and clutivation of splenocytes.

Availability of Data and Materials

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Funding

This work was funded by the Hangzhou Health Science & Technology program (2014A02), the Science Technology Department of Zhejiang Province Project (2017C37132), the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Y14H310012 and Y18H310007), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81570536).

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Author notes

  1. Xu-Yang Zheng and Lin Tong contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatric, Affiliated Hangzhou First People’s Hospital, Zhejiang University school of Medicine, 261 Huansha Road, Hangzhou, 310001, China

    Xu-Yang Zheng

  2. Department of Pharmacology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, 310058, Zhejiang, China

    Lin Tong, Dan Shen, Jia-En Yu, Zheng-Qiang Hu, Ya-Jun Li, Le-Jun Zhang, En-Fu Xue & Hui-Fang Tang

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  1. Xu-Yang Zheng
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Contributions

ZXY and TL participated in most experiments, interpreted the results, and wrote the manuscript. SD and YJE contributed to the preparation of animal models, the collection of tissue specimens, and interpreted many of the experimental results. HZQ, ZLJ, LYJ, and XEF contributed to the preparation of flow cytometry samples and tissue harvesting. THF conceived all of the experiments and participated in the interpretation of the results and manuscript writing.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xu-Yang Zheng or Hui-Fang Tang.

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The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Zhejiang University, and the experiments were performed in accordance with the National Institutes of Health Guidelines for the Use of Laboratory Animals.

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All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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The authors declare they have no competing interests.

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Zheng, XY., Tong, L., Shen, D. et al. Airborne Bacteria Enriched PM2.5 Enhances the Inflammation in an Allergic Adolescent Mouse Model Induced by Ovalbumin. Inflammation 43, 32–43 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10753-019-01071-5

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