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Original research
Metabolomic profiling identifies plasma sphingosine 1-phosphate levels associated with welding exposures
  1. Shangzhi Gao1,
  2. Zhu Zhuo2,
  3. John Hutchinson2,
  4. Li Su1,
  5. David C Christiani1,3
  1. 1 Environmental Health, Harvard University T H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  2. 2 Biostatistics, Harvard University T H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  3. 3 Pulmonary and Critical Care Division, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr David C Christiani, Environmental Health, Harvard University T H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA; dchris{at}hsph.harvard.edu

Abstract

Background Despite a number of known health hazards of welding fume exposure, it is unclear how exposure affects the human metabolome.

Objective We assessed the metabolic profiles of welders before and after a 6-hour welding shift, controlling for circadian rhythm of metabolism on a non-welding day.

Methods Welders were recruited from a training centre in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 2006 and 2010–2012 and donated blood samples on a welding shift day before and after work, as well as on a non-welding day spent in an adjacent classroom. In total, we collected 509 samples from 74 participants. Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry quantified 665 metabolites from thawed plasmas. Metabolites with significant time (afternoon compared with morning) and day (welding/classroom) interactions were identified by two-way analysis of variance, and the overnight changes were evaluated.

Results Sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) and sphingasine 1-phosphate (SA1P) exhibited significant interaction effects between day and time with false discovery rate-adjusted p values of 0.03 and <0.01, respectively. S1P, SA1P and sphingosine shared similar trends over time: high relative levels in the morning of a non-welding day declining by afternoon, but with lower starting levels on a welding day and no decline. There was no obvious pattern related to current smoking status.

Conclusion S1P and SA1P profiles were different between welding day and classroom day. The S1P pathway was disrupted on the day of welding exposure. The levels of S1P, SA1P and sphingosine were highly correlated over time. S1P is a signalling lipid with many vital roles; thus, the underlying mechanism and clinical implications of this alteration need further investigation.

  • welding
  • PM10-PM2.5-ultrafine
  • toxicology
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2020-106918

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors SG contributed to study design, sample processing, statistical analysis and manuscript writing. ZZ and JH contributed to data quality control and statistical analysis. LS contributed to participant recruitment, participant follow-up, sample collection and sample management. DCC is the principal investigator of the study.

    • Funding This study was supported by a grant (T42OH008416) issued by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Department of Health and Human Services.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval Signed informed consent was obtained from all study participants in each study period. All study procedures were approved by the institutional review board of the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement No data are available. Data of this study are not available in a public, open access repository.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.