Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, 100191, China.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, 100191, China.
Chemosphere. 2023 Nov;341:140009. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.140009. Epub 2023 Aug 28.
Increasing studies have linked air pollution to kidney dysfunction, however, the associations between the mixture of air pollutants and kidney function and potential effect modifiers remain unclear. We aimed to investigate whether obese adults were more susceptible than normal-weight ones to the joint effects of multiple air pollutants on kidney function and further to explore effect modification by free fatty acids (FFAs). Forty obese and 49 normal-weight adults were recruited from a panel study (252 follow-up visits). Individual exposure levels of air pollutants (PM, PM, O, NO, SO and CO) were estimated. Glomerular function (cystatin C (CysC) and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)) and tubular function (neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) and kidney injury molecule-1) were evaluated. Plasma levels of FFAs including trans fatty acids (TFAs) and essential fatty acids (EFAs) were quantified using targeted metabolomics. Bayesian kernel machine regression model was applied to estimate the associations between the mixture of air pollutants and kidney function. The results showed significant joint effects of air pollutants on kidney function indicators. In the normal-weight group, the mixture of air pollutants was significantly associated with CysC and eGFRcr-cys when the mixture was at or above its 70 percentile compared with the median, where O was identified as the key pollutant. In the obese group, a significantly positive association between the pollutant mixture and NGAL was observed in addition to trends in CysC and eGFRcr-cys, mainly driven by SO. Interaction analysis suggested that the associations of air pollutants with kidney function were augmented by TFAs in both groups and weakened by EFAs in the normal-weight group. This study highlighted the renal adverse effects of air pollutants and modification of FFAs, which has implications for target prevention for kidney dysfunction associated with air pollution, especially among vulnerable populations.
越来越多的研究将空气污染与肾功能障碍联系起来，然而，空气污染物混合物与肾功能之间的关联以及潜在的效应修饰因子仍不清楚。我们旨在研究肥胖成年人是否比正常体重成年人更容易受到多种空气污染物对肾功能的联合影响，并进一步探讨游离脂肪酸 (FFAs) 的修饰作用。从一项队列研究（252 次随访）中招募了 40 名肥胖成年人和 49 名正常体重成年人。估计了个体空气污染物（PM、PM、O、NO、SO 和 CO）的暴露水平。评估了肾小球功能（胱抑素 C (CysC) 和估算肾小球滤过率 (eGFR)) 和肾小管功能（中性粒细胞明胶酶相关脂质运载蛋白 (NGAL) 和肾损伤分子-1）。使用靶向代谢组学定量了 FFAs 包括反式脂肪酸 (TFAs) 和必需脂肪酸 (EFAs) 的血浆水平。贝叶斯核机器回归模型用于估计空气污染物混合物与肾功能之间的关联。结果表明，空气污染物对肾功能指标有显著的联合作用。在正常体重组中，与中位数相比，当混合物处于或高于其第 70 百分位时，空气污染物混合物与 CysC 和 eGFRcr-cys 显著相关，其中 O 被确定为关键污染物。在肥胖组中，除了 CysC 和 eGFRcr-cys 的趋势外，还观察到污染物混合物与 NGAL 之间存在显著正相关，主要由 SO 驱动。交互分析表明，在两组中，TFAs 增强了空气污染物与肾功能之间的关联，而在正常体重组中，EFAs 则减弱了这种关联。这项研究强调了空气污染物对肾脏的不良影响以及 FFAs 的修饰作用，这对与空气污染相关的肾功能障碍的目标预防具有重要意义，尤其是在脆弱人群中。
