Pulmonary innate inflammatory responses to agricultural occupational contaminants

Abstract

Agricultural workers are exposed to many contaminants and suffer from respiratory and other symptoms. Dusts, gases, microbial products and pesticide residues from farms have been linked to effects on the health of agricultural workers. Growing sets of data from in vitro and in vivo models demonstrate the role of the innate immune system, especially Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and TLR9, in lung inflammation induced following exposure to contaminants in agricultural environments. Interestingly, inflammation and lung function changes appear to be discordant indicating the complexity of inflammatory responses to exposures. Whereas the recent development of rodent models and exposure systems have yielded valuable data, we need new systems to examine the combined effects of multiple contaminants in order to increase our understanding of farm-exposure-induced negative health effects.

Development, remodeling and regeneration of the lung: coping with the structural and functional challenges of breathing

“…The occupational hazards of farming are the subject of the review by Sethi et al (2017). They provide an overview on the contaminants that agricultural workers are exposed to and their effects on the innate immune system and the inflammatory state of the lung, with particular emphasis on Toll-like receptors and surfactant proteins.…”

Study of ethion and lipopolysaccharide interaction on lung in a mouse model

“…The studies regarding interaction of LPS and pesticide on cytokine expression [13]; apoptosis [14] and lung immunity [15] suggested synergistic effect of the combination of LPS with pesticide compared to pesticide alone. We have reported that LPS interacts with various classes of pesticides to alter the magnitude of pulmonary damage [2,[16][17][18][19][20][21] as well as genotoxicity [7,22]. Thus, exposure to LPS may deteriorate the health of ethion exposed subjects by exaggerating the harmful effects of ethion.…”

Exposures to 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid With or Without Endotoxin Upregulate Small Cell Lung Cancer Pathway

“…Agricultural workers especially those in animal confinement or grain handling buildings may potentially get exposed to both pesticides and environmental bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS) [5]. Previous studies from our laboratory indicate that endotoxin interaction with various classes of pesticides increases the pesticide induced lung damage [6][7][8][9][10]. LPS ligate TLR-4 to activate various signaling pathways including NF-kB leading to the production of inflammatory mediators and lung inflammation [11].…”