Serum Chemokines and Changes in Air Pollution Levels During the Beijing Olympics

Yanli Li, Matthew Bonner, Richard Browne, Furong Deng, Junfeng Zhang, Jicheng Gong, Kate Rittenhouse-Olson, Jingjing Yin, Lili Tian, Lina Mu

Research output: Contribution to conferencePresentation

Abstract

Background: Chemokines are implicated as inflammatory mediators through which air pollution induces adverse health effects, however human evidence is lacking. Temporary air quality control measures during Beijing Olympics led to drastic decline in air pollution levels, and elevated to the usual levels after the Games. Aims: Our study aims to explore relationships between changes in air pollution levels and selected chemokines in human sera.

Methods: We conducted a panel study in which serum samples were collected in pre-, during and post-Olympic periods from 104 healthy Beijing adults. We measured a suite of chemokines including CXCL-1 (GRO-?), CXCL-8 (IL-8), CXCL-10 (IP-10), CCL-2 (MCP-1), CCL-5 (RANTES), CCL-8 (MCP-2), CCL-11 (eotaxin) and CCL-17 (TARC) using Q-Plex Arrays multiplexed ELISA. We used linear mixed-effect models to evaluate changes in chemokine levels in relation to air pollution levels.

Results: Air pollution levels during Beijing Olympics decreased by 50-60% and returned to the usual levels after the Games. CCL-5, CCL-8 and CCL-17 decreased by 25.84%, 20.88% and 35.30% respectively (P<0.0001) from pre- to during-Olympic period and then increased by 45.84%, 34.92% and 61.53% respectively (P<0.0001) after the Olympics. The changes in chemokine levels by period remained significant in subgroup analyses stratified by gender, age (?40, 40-50, >50 years), smoking status and body mass index categories (<24, 24-28, >28 kg/m2). Significant decreases in CXCL-1 and CXCL-8 were found from pre- to during Olympics, but their levels increased non-significantly after the Games. For CCL-11, non-significant decrease was found from the pre- to during-Olympics, while significant increase was found from during to post-Olympics.

Conclusion: Our panel study is among the first human studies, to our knowledge, that observed significant changes in serum chemokine concentration in response to a temporary air pollution intervention. Chemokines may act as important mediators in the inflammatory pathway induced by air pollution.

Conference

ConferenceInternational Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE)/International Society of Exposure Science (ISES)/International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ) Joint Conference
Period08/19/13 → …

Keywords

  • Adverse health effects
  • Ambient air pollution
  • Beijing Olympics
  • Human sera
  • Inflammatory mediators
  • Serum chemokines

DC Disciplines

  • Biostatistics
  • Public Health

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