Department of Environmental Pollution and Health, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, 100012 Beijing, China.
School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia.
Sci Total Environ. 2017 Feb 1;579:1446-1459. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.11.146. Epub 2016 Nov 29.
Epidemiologic evidence supports the positive association of cardiopulmonary morbidity and mortality, and lung cancer risk with exposure to airborne particulate matter (PM). Oxidative stress and inflammation have been proposed to be the major causal factors involved in mediating PM effects on both cardiovascular and pulmonary health outcomes. However, the mechanism whereby PM causes the health effects is not fully elucidated. To evaluate and investigate human exposure to PM, it is essential to have a specific, sensitive and robust characterization of individual exposure to PM. Biomarkers may mark important intermediate steps leading to overt health effects after PM exposure. Thus biomarkers are promising indicators, which could serve as representative measures of the exposure to PM for assessing the health impacts and understanding the mechanism. Indeed, a number of biomarkers are already in use in the field of epidemiological studies and toxicological research. However, we are facing now the challenges to select robust, specific and sensitive biomarkers, which can be employed in large-scale of population to assess the health risk and to monitor the effectiveness of interventions. In this review, we describe a range of biomarkers that are associated with air pollution exposure, particularly markers of oxidative stress, inflammatory factors, and microRNAs, as well as markers of pollutants metabolites. Understanding the nature of the association of these biomarkers with PM exposure may shed some light on the process of selecting biomarkers for large-scale population studies, developing novel preventative and therapeutic strategies.
流行病学证据支持心肺发病率和死亡率以及肺癌风险与暴露于空气传播的颗粒物 (PM) 之间的正相关关系。氧化应激和炎症被认为是介导 PM 对心血管和肺部健康结果的主要因果因素。然而，PM 导致健康影响的机制尚未完全阐明。为了评估和研究人类对 PM 的暴露，必须对个体对 PM 的暴露进行特定、敏感和稳健的描述。生物标志物可能标志着 PM 暴露后导致明显健康影响的重要中间步骤。因此，生物标志物是很有前途的指标，可以作为 PM 暴露的代表性测量指标，用于评估健康影响和理解机制。事实上，许多生物标志物已经在流行病学研究和毒理学研究领域得到了应用。然而，我们现在面临着选择稳健、特异和敏感的生物标志物的挑战，这些生物标志物可以在大规模人群中用于评估健康风险并监测干预措施的效果。在这篇综述中，我们描述了一系列与空气污染暴露相关的生物标志物，特别是氧化应激、炎症因子和 microRNAs 的标志物，以及污染物代谢物的标志物。了解这些生物标志物与 PM 暴露的关联性质可能有助于阐明为大规模人群研究选择生物标志物、开发新的预防和治疗策略的过程。
