Donaldson K, Brown G M, Brown D M, Slight J, Cullen R T, Love R G, Soutar C A
Institute of Occupational Medicine, Edinburgh.
Br J Ind Med. 1990 Apr;47(4):231-8. doi: 10.1136/oem.47.4.231.
In a previous study assessing respiratory symptoms in individuals employed in wool textile mills in the north of England relations between symptoms of chronic bronchitis, breathlessness and wheeze, and rhinitis and current exposure to airborne mass concentration of dust were shown. As preliminary steps in defining the potential hazard associated with dust from the air of wool mills the ability of inspirable dust, collected from the air of wool textile mills, to cause inflammation when injected into the lungs of rats was determined. Dusts were collected from the beginning of wool processing (opening) in one factory and from the middle (combing) and late (backwinding) stages of the process in two other factories. Ability of the dusts to cause inflammation was assessed by instillation into the lungs of rats followed by bronchoalveolar lavage. All the dusts caused some inflammation which peaked on day 1 and did not persist beyond one week. A distinctive aggregation response of mononuclear cells in the lavage, however, had a different time course, peaking at day 7. An attempt was made to determine how the wool mill dusts caused inflammation and experiments showed that the dusts themselves had no inherent chemotactic activity but that they did have a pronounced ability to generate chemotaxins in serum and so could activate complement in lung fluid. In addition, dust collected from ledges in the mills had the ability to injure epithelial cells in vitro which could also contribute to inflammation. A role for endotoxin in the inflammatory activity of the dusts was not discounted and a leachate of the dust had the ability to cause inflammation when injected into the lungs of rats. Wool mill dust is likely to be a complex mixture of materials and these experiments represent a preliminary approach to understanding the biological activity of the whole unfractionated dust and further studies are in progress to define more accurately the toxic material(s) in the dust.
在之前一项评估英格兰北部羊毛纺织厂员工呼吸道症状的研究中，显示了慢性支气管炎症状、呼吸急促和喘息与鼻炎和当前空气中粉尘质量浓度暴露之间的关系。作为确定与羊毛厂空气中粉尘相关潜在危害的初步步骤，测定了从羊毛纺织厂空气中收集的可吸入粉尘注入大鼠肺部时引起炎症的能力。粉尘取自一家工厂羊毛加工开始阶段（开松）以及另外两家工厂加工过程的中间阶段（精梳）和后期阶段（倒筒）。通过将粉尘滴入大鼠肺部然后进行支气管肺泡灌洗来评估粉尘引起炎症的能力。所有粉尘都引起了一定程度的炎症，在第1天达到峰值，且一周后不再持续。然而，灌洗中单核细胞独特的聚集反应有不同的时间进程，在第7天达到峰值。人们试图确定羊毛厂粉尘如何引起炎症，实验表明粉尘本身没有内在的趋化活性，但它们确实有在血清中产生趋化因子的显著能力，因此能够激活肺液中的补体。此外，从工厂壁架上收集的粉尘在体外有损伤上皮细胞的能力，这也可能导致炎症。内毒素在粉尘炎症活性中的作用并未被排除，粉尘的浸出液注入大鼠肺部时有引起炎症的能力。羊毛厂粉尘可能是多种物质的复杂混合物，这些实验是理解整个未分级粉尘生物活性的初步方法，目前正在进行进一步研究以更准确地确定粉尘中的有毒物质。
