Genetic effects of welding fumes on the progression of neurodegenerative diseases

Background: Welding involves exposure to fumes, gases and radiant energy that can be hazardous to human health. Welding fumes (WFs) comprise a complex mixture of metallic oxides, silicates and fluorides that may result in different health effects. Inhalation of WFs in large quantities over a long periods may pose a risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases (NDGDs), but the nature of this risk is poorly understood. To address this we performed transcriptomic analysis to identify links between WF exposure and NDGDs. Methods: We developed quantitative frameworks to identify the gene expression relationships of WF exposure and NDGDs. We analyzed gene expression microarray data from fume-exposed tissues and NDGDs including Parkinson's disease (PD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), Lou Gehrig's disease (LGD), Epilepsy disease (ED) and multiple sclerosis disease (MSD) datasets. We constructed disease gene relationship networks and identified dysregulated pathways, ontological pathways and protein protein interaction sub-network using multilayer network topology and neighborhood-based benchmarking. Results: We observed that WF associated genes share 18, 16, 13, 19 and 19 differentially expressed genes with PD, AD, LGD, ED and MSD respectively. Gene expression dysregulation along with relationship networks, pathways and ontologic analysis indicate that WFs may be linked to the progression of these NDGDs. Conclusions: Our developed network-based approach to analysis and investigate the genetic effects of welding fumes on PD, AD, LGD, ED and MSD neurodegenerative diseases could be helpful to understand the causal influences of WF exposure for the progression of the NDGDs.