Toxic effect of cooking oil fume (COF) on lungs: Evidence of endoplasmic reticulum stress in rat

Background: Cooking oil fumes (COF) is one of the primary sources of indoor air pollution in China, which is associated with respiratory diseases such as acute lung injury and lung cancer. However, evidence of COF toxic effect was few. Objectives: The research was aimed to investigate the toxic effect and the underlying mechanisms induced by COF. Methods: The female Wistar rats were randomly divided into several groups, including control group, COF exposure group and VE protection group, and instilled intratracheally with different COF suspensions (0.2, 2, 20 mg/kg) or saline once every 3 days for 30 days. After 24 h of final exposure, all rat were anesthetic euthanasia to draw materials. The alveolar lavage fluid (BALF) was for inflammatory cell count. The lung homogenate was to determine the biochemical indexes such as oxidative stress, apoptosis factors, carcinogenic toxicity and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. The left lung was made for immunohistochemical and histopathological analysis. Results: The results showed that the levels of oxidative stress (ROS), apoptosis factors (NF-kappa B), carcinogenic toxicity (P53 and 8-OhdG), ER stress (IRE-1 alpha and Caspase-12) in 2 mg/kg and 20 mg/kg COF exposure groups were significantly increased compared with the saline groups. The above pathological changes were improved after vitamin E (VE) supplementation. In addition, the immunohistochemical and histopathological analysis found the same trend. Conclusion: The COF had health risk of heredity and potential carcinogenicity. Besides, COFs can not only induce oxidative stress, but also induce ER stress in lung and airway epithelial cells of female rats through the unfolded protein reaction (UPR) pathway. It revealed that the oxidative stress and ER stress interacted in aggravating lung injury. VE could effectively alleviate the lung injury causing by COF exposure.

Automated summary

The study revealed that exposure to cooking oil fumes had significant toxic effects on the respiratory system of rats, including oxidative stress, activation of apoptosis factors, and endoplasmic reticulum stress. Vitamin E could effectively alleviate lung injury caused by exposure to cooking oil fumes.