Potratz Sarah, Jungnickel Harald, Grabiger Stefan, Tarnow Patrick, Otto Wolfgang, Fritsche Ellen, von Bergen Martin, Luch Andreas
Department of Chemical and Product Safety, German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), Max-Dohrn-Strasse 8-10, 10589 Berlin, Germany.
Department of Molecular Systems Biology, UFZ - Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, Permoserstrasse 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany.
Toxicol Rep. 2016 Sep 16;3:763-773. doi: 10.1016/j.toxrep.2016.09.003. eCollection 2016.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous in the human environment. Since they are present in crude oilfractions used for the production of rubber and plastics, consumers may come into direct dermal contacts with these compounds (e.g., via tool handles) on a daily basis. Some individual PAHs are identified as genotoxic mutagens thereby prompting particular toxicological and environmental concern. Among this group, benzo[]pyrene (BAP) constitutes a model carcinogen which is also used as reference compound for risk assessment purposes. It acts as a strong agonist of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) and becomes metabolically activated toward mutagenic and carcinogenic intermediates by cytochrome P450-dependent monooxygenases (CYPs). While BAP has been exhaustively characterized with regard to its toxicological properties, there is much less information available for other PAHs. We treated an AHR-proficient immortal human keratinocyte cell line (i.e., HaCaT) with three selected PAHs: BAP, chrysene (CRY) and dibenzo[]pyrene (DALP). Compound-mediated alterations of endogenous metabolites were investigated by an LC-MS/MS-based targeted approach. To examine AHR-dependent changes of the measured metabolites, AHR-deficient HaCaT knockdown cells (AHR-KD) were used for comparison. Our results reveal that 24 metabolites are sufficient to separate the PAH-exposed cells from untreated controls by application of a multivariate model. Alterations in the metabolomics profiles caused by each PAH show influences on the energy and lipid metabolism of the cells indicating reduced tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle activity and β-oxidation. Up-regulation of sphingomyelin levels after exposure to BAP and DALP point to pro-apoptotic processes caused by these two potent PAHs. Our results suggest that metabolomics can serve as tool to develop bioassays for application in hazard assessment.
多环芳烃(PAHs)在人类环境中普遍存在。由于它们存在于用于生产橡胶和塑料的原油馏分中,消费者可能每天都直接通过皮肤接触这些化合物(例如,通过工具手柄)。一些单个的多环芳烃被确定为具有基因毒性的诱变剂,因此引发了特别的毒理学和环境关注。在这一组中,苯并[a]芘(BAP)是一种典型的致癌物,也用作风险评估的参考化合物。它是芳烃受体(AHR)的强激动剂,并通过细胞色素P450依赖性单加氧酶(CYPs)代谢活化为诱变和致癌中间体。虽然BAP在其毒理学特性方面已得到详尽的表征,但关于其他多环芳烃的信息却少得多。我们用三种选定的多环芳烃处理了一种AHR功能正常的永生人类角质形成细胞系(即HaCaT):BAP、屈(CRY)和二苯并[a,h]芘(DALP)。通过基于液相色谱-串联质谱(LC-MS/MS)的靶向方法研究了化合物介导的内源性代谢物变化。为了检查所测代谢物的AHR依赖性变化,使用AHR缺陷的HaCaT敲低细胞(AHR-KD)进行比较。我们的结果表明,通过应用多变量模型,24种代谢物足以将暴露于多环芳烃的细胞与未处理的对照区分开来。每种多环芳烃引起的代谢组学谱变化显示对细胞的能量和脂质代谢有影响,表明三羧酸(TCA)循环活性和β-氧化降低。暴露于BAP和DALP后鞘磷脂水平的上调表明这两种强效多环芳烃引起了促凋亡过程。我们的结果表明,代谢组学可作为一种工具,用于开发在危害评估中应用的生物测定法。