XXII. BIOCHEMICKÝ ZJAZD - Jesseniova lekárska fakulta

Posters
122.
EnvirONMENTal POLLUTaNTS as faCTOrs MODULaTING THE
INflaMMaTOry rESPONSE aND fUNCTIONS of LUNG CELLS
Lenka Umannová 1,2 , Miroslav Machala 2 , Alois Kozubík 1 and Jan Vondráček 1,2
1
Laboratory of Cytokinetics, Institute of Biophysics, ASCR v.v.i., 612 65 Brno,
Czech Republic
2
Veterinary Research Institute v.v.i., 621 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Chronic inflammation plays a central role in pathogenesis of lung cancer or chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease, which belong among leading causes of death. Air pollution
represents a significant risk factor for lung cancer incidence. The polluted atmosphere
contains various matrices with carcinogenic potential including vehicle exhaust, side-stream
tobacco smoke, coal combustion effluents and transient metals. In the present study, we
analyzed mutual deregulation of enzymes involved both in xenobiotic metabolism and
inflammatory responses, caused by environmental pollutant and important tobacco smoke
constituent benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) and TNF-a in rat lung RLE-6TN alveolar type II cell line.
Our results show that BaP modulates the expression/activity of enzymes induced by
TNF-a that are involved in inflammatory responses such as prostaglandin-endoperoxide
synthase 2 (COX-2) or inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), leading to enhanced release
of their products such as prostaglandin E2. Moreover, BaP increases expression of inflammatory
cytokines induced by TNF-a in target cells. Important role in increased expression
may play oxidative stress and activation of p38 mitogen activated protein kinases. These
results demonstrate that environmental pollutants affect signaling pathways related to
inflammatory response and may thus contribute to deregulated inflammation and lung
epithelial damage.
Acknowledgement: Supported by the Czech Ministry of Agriculture, grant No. MZe
0002716202.
XXII. Biochemistry Congress, Martin
247