P.1.26 Biomarkers of health effects in nanomaterials workers: updated status of nanoepidemiology

The first article ‘Epidemiological Study of Health Hazards among Workers Handling Engineered Nanomaterials.’ was published on J Nanopart Res in 2012, and the first review article ‘Assessing the first wave of epidemiological studies of nanomaterial workers’ was published on J Nanopart Res in 2015. Until now, 29 epidemiological studies were published in peer-reviewed scientific journal. In addition, 5 epidemiological studies were traced but unpublished in the peer-reviewed journal, including 1 PhD. thesis and 4 conference abstracts. Most of these studies involved single nanomaterial exposure, for example, 8 articles for carbon nanotubes (MWCNT), 7 articles for titanium dioxide, 1 article for iron oxides, nano calcium carbonate, nano zinc oxide, and nanocomposite, but 6 studies from Taiwan involved multiple exposures. Two studies did not mention the specific components of nanoparticles. Most of these studies were done in Europe (14), followed by Asia (10), USA (2) and Australia (1). Generally, biomarkers were used as the outcomes variables to elaborate the health hazards of nanomaterials, except for 1 study surveyed work-related symptoms and diseases worsen by work. Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) and serum were the most frequently used biospecimen. All 26 cross-sectional studies and 1 six-month longitudinal panel study showed positive relationship between nanomaterials exposures and various biomarkers. Positive health effects include: 1. elevation of lung fibrosis markers and lung inflammation markers; 2. elevation of cardiovascular injury markers and abnormal HRV; 3. elevation of EBC nucleic acid, lipid and protein oxidative markers; 4. Increased immune markers; 5. changes in the ncRNA and mRNA expression, reduced global methylation, and specific gene methylation. This review provides some insight into potentially adverse effects that might be related to nanomaterial exposures and provides a foundation for future work. We expect more longitudinal studies with repeated measurements to explore chronic and cumulative effects of nanomaterial exposure.