Institute for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Institute for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, University Hospital, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
Environ Health Perspect. 2021 Feb;129(2):27004. doi: 10.1289/EHP7164. Epub 2021 Feb 17.
Residential exposure to air pollution (AP) has been shown to activate the immune system (IS). Although innate immune responses to AP have been studied extensively, investigations on the adaptive IS are scarce.
The aim of this study was to investigate the association between short- to long-term AP exposure and polyclonal free light chains (FLC) produced by plasma cells.
We used repeated data from three examinations (: 2000-2003; : 2006-2008; and : 2011-2015) of the population-based German Heinz Nixdorf Recall cohort of initially 4,814 participants (45-75 y old). Residential exposure to total and source-specific particulate matter (PM) with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 or ( and respectively), nitrogen dioxide (), and particle number concentrations (accumulation mode; ) was estimated using a chemistry transport model with different time windows (1- to 365-d mean ± standard deviation) before blood draw. We applied linear mixed models with a random participant intercept to estimate associations between total, traffic- and industry-related AP exposures and log-transformed FLC, controlling for examination time, sociodemographic and lifestyle variables, estimated glomerular filtration rate and season.
Analyzing 9,933 observations from 4,455 participants, we observed generally positive associations between AP exposures and FLC. We observed strongest associations with middle-term exposures, e.g., 3.0% increase in FLC (95% confidence interval: 1.8%, 4.3%) per interquartile range increase in 91-d mean of (). Across the different pollutants, showed strongest associations with FLC, followed by and . Effect estimates for traffic-related exposures were mostly higher compared with total exposures. Although and estimates remained stable upon adjustment for PM, PM estimates decreased considerably upon adjustment for and .
Our results suggest that middle-term AP exposures in particular might be positively associated with activation of the adaptive IS. Traffic-related PM, , and showed strongest associations. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP7164.
住宅空气污染（AP）暴露已被证明能激活免疫系统（IS）。尽管人们已经广泛研究了先天免疫对 AP 的反应，但对适应性 IS 的研究却很少。
本研究旨在探讨短期至长期 AP 暴露与浆细胞产生的多克隆游离轻链（FLC）之间的关系。
我们使用了来自人群基础的德国 Heinz Nixdorf 回顾队列的三个重复数据（：2000-2003 年；：2006-2008 年；：2011-2015 年），最初的 4814 名参与者（45-75 岁）。使用化学传输模型，使用不同的时间窗口（1-365 天平均±标准差），在采血前估计住宅暴露于总颗粒物和源特定颗粒物（PM），空气动力学直径为 10 或 （分别为和），二氧化氮（）和颗粒数浓度（积聚模式；）。我们应用线性混合模型，具有随机参与者截距，以估计总暴露、交通和工业相关的 AP 暴露与对数转换 FLC 之间的关系，控制检查时间、社会人口统计学和生活方式变量、估计肾小球滤过率和季节。
在分析了 4455 名参与者的 9933 次观察结果后，我们观察到 AP 暴露与 FLC 之间通常呈正相关。我们观察到与中期暴露的最强关联，例如，91 天平均浓度每增加一个四分位距（IQR），FLC 增加 3.0%（95%置信区间：1.8%，4.3%）。在不同的污染物中，与 FLC 最强的关联是，其次是和。交通相关暴露的估计值与总暴露相比，大多更高。尽管 PM 调整后的估计值保持稳定，但 PM 调整后的估计值大大降低。
我们的结果表明，特别是中期的 AP 暴露可能与适应性 IS 的激活呈正相关。交通相关的 PM、和显示出最强的关联。https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP7164.
