| ObjectiveSilicosis has been stipulated by laws as an occupational disease. It is a type of systematical disease caused by inhalation of silica dust characterized mainly by pulmonary interstitial fibrosis. It is one of the occupational disease with high morbidity in China,and extensive harmful to workers. There is no effective means for early diagnosis and health surveillance up to now. When patient was definitely diagnosed by chest roentgenogram,pulmonary fibrosis can not be reversed with medicines. So finding biomarker for early diagnosis of silicosis and proceeding of pulmonary interstitial fibrosis is very urgent. As we all know, the morbidity of silicosis not only related to environmental factor but also with individual susceptivity. In our study we measured silicon levels in blood and urine samples by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and associated with gene polymorphism of transforming growth factor-β-509 to investigate its meaning and values in the early diagnosis and pathogenesis of silicosis.MethodsBlood and urine samples were collected from different groups of workers exposed to silica, silicosis patients and health people. All the people come from the same gold mine. The questionnaire designed by ourselves was used to collect the basic information including living conditions, general materials, smoking, drinking, smoking history, past medical history and so on."Exposing worker card"was used to verify and collect work unit, job shop, the exposing dust age, the accumulate years of exposing dust, the conditions of change job type, the diagnostic time and so on. EP tube contained 0.1 ml EDTA anticoagulants was used to collect the blood samples. (Silicosis patients 112cases, workers exposed to silica 138 cases, healthy people 41cases); 15ml centrifugal tube was used to collecte the urine samples. (Silicosis patients 36cases, workers exposed to silica36 cases, healthy people 29cases). Urine samples were checked with creatinine correction by GuWeiSuan method. The silicon levels in blood and urine samples were detected by ICP-MS.20 blood samples were choosed from silicosis group while 43 from the group exposed to silica dust but not suffer from silicosis. The latter was divided two classes: high concentrations group (silicon level more than 200PPb) and low concentrations group (silicon level less than 200PPb)。Salting out method was used to extract genomic DNA from blood samples. The genotype of TGF-β-509 was detected by using the method of polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) techniques. Pearson′sχ2 test was used for analysing relation of the genotypes with silicosis. All the data were analyzed by statistical analysis software SPSS 13.0 for windows and Alpha=0.05 were considered statistically significant.Results1. The blood silicon level in workers exposed to silica was significantly increased than that of control group and silicosis group (P<0.01).2. The urine silicon level in workers exposed to silica was significantly increased than that of control group and silicosis group (P<0.01).3. Along with extended time exposed to silica, the blood silicon level in workers was appeared a gradually increasing trend, while the value in 10~ years increased faster and slowed down after that.4. The frequencies of the TGF-β-509 genotypes in silicosis group significantly different from that of silicon exposed group (high concentration).5. The frequencies of the TGF-β-509-CC genotypes in silicosis group is higher than that of in silicon exposed group (high concentration). ConclusionThe level of silicon in workers exposed to silica was significantly increased than that of control group and silicosis group (P<0.01). In our study,the workers exposed to silica whose genotype is TGF-β-509CC have a worse metabolic ability of silicon, so that the blood level of silicon is more higher. TGF-β-509CC genotype may be a susceptible factor for silicosis. |
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