Progress in Assessing Air Pollutant Risks from In Vitro Exposures: Matching Ozone Dose and Effect in Human Airway Cells

In vitro exposures to air pollutants could, in theory, facilitate a rapid and detailed assessment of molecular mechanisms of toxicity. However, it is difficult to ensure that the dose of a gaseous pollutant to cells in tissue culture is similar to that of the same cells during in vivo exposure of a living person. The goal of the present study was to compare the dose and effect of O-3 in airway cells of humans exposed in vivo to that of human cells exposed in vitro. Ten subjects breathed labeled O-3 (O-18(3), 0.3 ppm, 2 h) while exercising intermittently. Bronchial brush biopsies and lung lavage fluids were collected 1 h post exposure for in vivo data whereas in vitro data were obtained from primary cultures of human bronchial epithelial cells exposed to 0.25-1.0 ppm O-18(3) for 2 h. The O-3 dose to the cells was defined as the level of O-18 incorporation and the O-3 effect as the fold increase in expression of inflammatory marker genes (IL-8 and COX-2). Dose and effect in cells removed from in vivo exposed subjects were lower than in cells exposed to the same O-18(3) concentration in vitro suggesting upper airway O-3 scrubbing in vivo. Cells collected by lavage as well as previous studies in monkeys show that cells deeper in the lung receive a higher O-3 dose than cells in the bronchus. We conclude that the methods used herein show promise for replicating and comparing the in vivo dose and effect of O-3 in an in vitro system.