Sensitive biomarker of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs): urinary 1-hydroxyprene glucuronide in relation to smoking and low ambient levels of exposure

Abstract

The study was conducted in a Chinese population with occupational or environmental exposures to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). A total of 106 subjects were recruited from coke-oven workers (workers), residents in a metropolitan area (residents) and suburban gardeners (gardeners). All subjects were monitored twice for their personal exposures to PAHs. The biological samples were collected for measurements of 1-hydroxypyrene (1-OHP) and cotinine in urine. The geometric means of personal exposure levels of pyrene, benz(a)anthracene (BaA) and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) in workers were 1.470, 0.978 and 0.805 µg m⁻³, respectively. The corresponding levels in residents were 0.050, 0.034 and 0.025 µg m⁻³; and those in gardeners were 0.011, 0.020 and 0.008 µg m⁻³, respectively. The conjugate of 1-OHP with glucuronide (1-OHP-G) is the predominant form of pyrene metabolite in urine and it showed strong associations with exposures not only to pyrene, but also to BaA, BaP and total PAHs. Most importantly, a significant difference in 1-OHP-G was even detected between the subgroups with exposures to BaP at < 0.010 and > 0.010 but < 0.020 µg m⁻³, suggesting that 1-OHP-G is a good marker that can be used for the risk assessment of BaP exposure at levels currently encountered in ambient air. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses of 1-OHP-G on PAHs exposure indicated that cigarette smoke was a major confounding factor and should be considered and adjusted for while using 1-OHP to estimate PAHs exposure.

Keywords: :

• Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
• environmental exposure
• 1-hydroxypyrene
• urinary metabolites
• biomarkers

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all their Chinese colleagues who participated in the study for their excellent work; and they are grateful for the participation of the workers and the cooperation of the management in Taiyuan Iron and Steel Co., China. Work was supported in part by grants from the CDC/NIOSH, NIEHS; Grant Nos R21 OH07632 and ES00260.