Positive human health effects of sea spray aerosols: molecular evidence from exposed lung cell lines

Sea spray aerosols (SSAs) have profound effects on climate and ecosystems. Furthermore, the presence of microbiota and biogenic molecules, produced by among others marine phytoplankton, in SSAs could lead to potential human health effects. Yet the exposure and effects of SSAs on human health remain...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inbioRxiv
Main Authors Asselman, Jana, Emmanuel Van Acker, De Rijcke, Maarten, Tilleman, Laurentijn, Filip Van Nieuwerburgh, Mees, Jan, De Schamphelaere, Karel, Janssen, Colin
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 23.08.2018
Subjects
Aerosols
Algae
Cell lines
Climate effects
Health risk assessment
Laboratories
Lungs
Microbiota
Phytoplankton
Signal transduction
TOR protein
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Summary:Sea spray aerosols (SSAs) have profound effects on climate and ecosystems. Furthermore, the presence of microbiota and biogenic molecules, produced by among others marine phytoplankton, in SSAs could lead to potential human health effects. Yet the exposure and effects of SSAs on human health remain poorly studied. Here, we exposed human epithelial lung cells to different concentrations of extracts of a natural sea spray aerosol (SSA), a laboratory-generated SSA, the marine algal toxin homoyessotoxin and a chemical mTOR inhibitor. The mTOR inhibitor was included as it has been hypothesized that natural SSAs may influence the mTOR cell signaling pathway. We observed significant effects on the mTOR pathway and PCSK9 in all exposures. Based on these expression patterns, a clear dose response relationship was observed. Our results indicate a potential for positive health effects when lung cells are exposed to environmentally relevant concentrations of natural SSAs, whereas potential negative effects were observed at high levels of the laboratory SSA and the marine algal toxin. Overall, these results provide a substantial molecular evidence base for potential positive health effects of SSAs at environmentally relevant concentrations through the mTOR pathway. The results provided here suggest that SSAs contain biomolecules with significant pharmaceutical potential in targeting PCSK9. NOTE: JA and EVA shared equally in this work. Footnotes * Abstract updated
DOI:10.1101/397141