Early occupational exposure to lead on neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and genotoxicity

作者：Meng Yu, Kan Wang, Tuanwei Wang, Yuting Tu, Shiyang Gong, Yunxia Zhang, Guanghui Zhang, William W. Au, David C. Christiani, Zhao‐lin Xia · 发表于：Environment International · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1016/j.envint.2021.106448 · 被引用次数：30 · 研究领域：Heavy Metal Exposure and Toxicity、Carcinogens and Genotoxicity Assessment、Immunotoxicology and immune responses

BACKGROUND: Lead (Pb) is known to induce detrimental health effects in exposed populations, including hematotoxicity and genotoxicity. Complete blood count (CBC) is a cost-effective and easy way to determine toxicity, and variations in proportion of different types of leukocytes: neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) are further evidence of hematotoxicity. However, few studies have been conducted to systematically evaluate effects of occupational Pb exposure on NLR and LMR, and their associations with genotoxicity. OBJECTIVES: Our study was aimed to systematically assess the effects of current occupational Pb exposure on NLR and LMR, and their associations with genotoxicity. METHODS: Our investigation was performed on 1176 workers from a newly built battery factory in North China. The workers had just entered their current job position in recent years and most of them had no previous history of occupational exposure to Pb. Blood lead levels (BLLs) and leukocytes indices were detected for all participants. Cytokinesis-blocked micronucleus assay (MN; n = 675) and alkaline comet assay (% tail DNA; n = 869) were used to assess genotoxicity. Multivariate linear and Poisson regression analyses were conducted to examine associations between leukocytes indices, genotoxic biomarkers and BLLs with adjustment for covariates. Spearman correlation and mediation analyses were used to investigate relationships between NLR and genotoxicity. RESULTS: Amon...