Abstract
Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), a representative polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, exists widely in automobile emissions and polluted atmosphere. The current study aimed to describe pulmonary inflammation during BaP-induced acute lung injury (ALI). All mice except controls were intratracheally instilled with a single dose of BaP (90 μg per mouse). The alveolar structure was damaged, accompanied by numerous inflammatory cell infiltration around pulmonary interstitium and small airway. Airway wall area and mean linear intercept were reduced in BaP-exposed mouse lungs. By contrast, airway wall thickness and destructive index were elevated in BaP-exposed mouse lungs. Several inflammatory genes, such as Tnf-α, Il-1β, Il-6, Mip-2, Kc, and Mcp-1, were upregulated in mouse lungs. Phosphorylated IκBα was elevated in BaP-exposed mouse lungs. Nuclear translocation of NF-κB p65 and p50 was accordingly observed in BaP-exposed mouse lungs. Several molecules of the MAPK pathway, including JNK, ERK1/2, and p38, were activated in mouse lungs. Of interest, pretreatment with N-acetylcysteine (NAC), an antioxidant, alleviated BaP-induced ALI. Moreover, NAC attenuated BaP-induced inflammatory cell infiltration in mouse lungs and inflammatory gene upregulation in A549 cells. In addition, NAC attenuated BaP-induced NF-κB activation in A549 cells and mouse lungs. These results suggest that NAC alleviates pulmonary inflammatory response during BaP-evoked ALI.
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Abbreviations
- ALI:
-
acute lung injury
- BaP:
-
benzo[a]pyrene
- BALF:
-
bronchoalveolar lavage fluid
- COPD:
-
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- HPF:
-
high-power field
- IHC:
-
immunohistochemistry
- IL-6:
-
interleukin-6
- IL-1β:
-
interleukin-1β
- KC:
-
keratinocyte chemoattractant
- MAPK:
-
mitogen-activated protein kinase
- MLI:
-
mean linear intercept
- MIP-2:
-
macrophage inflammatory protein-2
- MCP-1:
-
macrophage chemoattractant protein-1
- NAC:
-
N-acetylcysteine
- PVDF:
-
polyvinylidene difluoride
- TNF-α:
-
tumor necrosis factor-α
- WBC:
-
white blood cell
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Funding
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81670060 and 91743105), the National Natural Science Foundation Incubation Program of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University (2020GQFY05), and the Scientific Research of Health Commission in Anhui Province (AHWJ2021b091).
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Hui Zhao: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing — original draft, and visualization. Lin Fu: conceptualization, methodology, resources, and writing — original draft. Hui-Xian Xiang: conceptualization, methodology, and resources. Ying Xiang, Meng-Die Li, Bian-Bian Lv, and Zhu-Xia Tan: methodology and software. Lan Gao: methodology, software, data curation, resources, and project administration. Cheng Zhang: conceptualization, validation, and resources. De-Xiang Xu: conceptualization and writing — review and editing. All authors contributed to the development of the manuscript and read and approved the final manuscript.
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Zhao, ., Fu, L., Xiang, HX. et al. N-acetylcysteine alleviates pulmonary inflammatory response during benzo[a]pyrene-evoked acute lung injury. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 3474–3486 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15914-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15914-y