Date of Award:

5-2012

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Sciences

Committee Chair(s)

R. A. Coulombe Jr.

Committee

R. A. Coulombe Jr.

Committee

Jeffrey O. Hall

Committee

Randy Martin

Committee

Bryan Stegelmeier

Committee

Anhong Zhou

Abstract

During the wintertime, residents of the Cache Valley are very aware of the poor air quality that occurs during cold-air inversion episodes. If one somehow avoids the radio and television announcements as well as the electronic roadside signs indicating poor air quality and encouraging less driving, one need only to look upward toward the mountains that surround the valley and notice the lack of daytime visibility. This lack of visibility and health warnings are due to particulate air pollution or particulate matter (PM). PM is only one of many types of regulated air pollution but is the one that occurs most in the Cache Valley. Mathematical studies done with large populations in other cities, or epidemiological studies, have associated higher concentrations of PM with early death from a variety of causes. The deaths are not caused by the air pollution; they are the same causes of death that affect everyone such as heart attack, stroke, cancer, etc. The PM is associated with populations of people dying sooner from those causes. How that occurs no one really knows. The epidemiological studies cannot determine how so other studies must be done to see what biological mechanisms are involved in PM causing harm. The research conducted here is an example of such studies. Using locally collected PM and human lung cells these studies were conducted to determine some potential mechanisms by which PM can cause harm. The PM did not readily kill the cells used here, which made the invenstigation more in-depth. However, the PM did cause stress in the cells. The PM caused the cells to produce proteins that are involved in signaling to other cells messages involved in the inflammatory process. The PM also caused the cells to undergo a special type of stress called endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. The PM caused the cells to activate internal signaling pathways that lead to the above-mentioned inflammation and cell growth as a likely adaptation to the stress. The findings of this study involving ER stress and activation of some of the cellular pathways were original and are mechanisms shared by diseases that have been associated with early death and PM exposure. While these findings add valuable information, there remain a large number of questions pertaining to how PM can exert harm in cells, the lung, and across the body.

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28ef2800296bfedc7b86402c41f744dc

Comments

This work made publicly available electronically on September 20, 2012.

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