Environmental Hazard in Vitro Biomarker Discovery Tools

Abstract : Individuals may respond to environmental hazards quite differently due to numerous factors, including proximity to the toxicant, the individual's size, health, past exposures, and heredity. Therefore, exposure monitoring must take these variations in individual response into account. While environmental sampling equipment provides an important indication of a toxicant's presence, it does not monitor individual responses. The development of biomarkers of exposure, effect, and susceptibility (1) is a priority at the U.S. Department of Defense Health Affairs in the area of occupational environmental health surveillance (OEHS). Not only do biomarkers offer the opportunity to quantify toxic exposures, but also to identify possible future adverse health effects by regular or contingent testing before, during, and after deployments. In an effort to rapidly advance biomarker discovery, the U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research (USACEHR) is working to develop new methods combining multiple approaches. This report demonstrates the feasibility of incorporating in vitro cellular models with label free quantitative proteomic screening technologies, function genomics and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) as biomarker discovery tools. This multi-tiered approach advances not only the knowledge about the effects of trinitrotoluene (TNT) and dinitrobenzene (DNB), but may also identify future biomarkers of exposure and/or effect.