Modeling health and developmental effects of particulate matter exposure using C. elegans
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Thompson, Carys
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Abstract
Particulate matter (PM) is air pollution comprised of tiny particles suspended in the air. Exposure to PM is a major global health concern, contributing to 9 million deaths annually. Fine PM can break down protective cellular barriers and cause systemic inflammation, leading to damage of the central nervous and respiratory systems. Children are especially vulnerable to prolonged PM exposure due to breathing in toxins at a faster rate. Due to the limitations in the current approaches (e.g., cultured cells and mice models), specific biological mechanisms linking PM exposure to health hazards are still largely unknown. In this work, the microscopic nematode C. elegans is proposed to model the systemic and multi-tissue effects of PM at the cellular level. C. elegans is an excellent model organism due to its small size and fast life and reproductive cycles. Here we examined the oxidative stress response caused by prolonged oxygenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (oxy-PAH) exposure in larval C. elegans using a reporter strain for cellular redox status. Oxy-PAH has been recognized as a toxic component of PM. We find that although oxy-PAH exposure causes delay in larval growth, it does not affect redox activity, suggesting that oxy-PAH toxicity occurs through other biological pathways. The results of this study establish lab-manufactured oxy-PAH as a positive control and serve as a pilot study for ambient PM. Future work will focus on the health and developmental effects of ambient PM throughout larval worm development.
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2022-05
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Undergraduate Thesis