Studies of chemical mixtures from real exposure to in vitro

COST Action CA15132 (hCOMET).Humans and wildlife are exposed to an intractably number of different combinations of chemicals via food, water, air, consumer products, materials, and goods. Exposure to mixtures of chemicals in occupational settings and in the environment is of increasing concern in the scientific community since no single approach is appropriate for determining the risk associated with exposure to chemical mixtures. The risk assessment of chemicals for regulatory purposes does only in rare cases take into account the “real life” exposure to multiple chemicals. For that reason is the aim of this project to evaluate combined cyto/genotoxicity of selected mixtures, using the concentrations measured in occupational setting real scenarios, and expose in vitro human lymphocytes, in a translational Toxicology approach. The term “translational” refers to the application of basic research in clinical research and vice-versa. Therefore, it was applied already this methodology in a mixture of selected cytostatics with different mechanisms of action (MoA; 5-fluorouracil, cyclophosphamide, and paclitaxel) towards human lymphocytes in vitro at a concentration range measured in an occupational setting real scenario - oncology day service workplace surfaces. The obtained results indicated that not only that such mixture may pose a risk to cell and genome integrity, but also that toxicity data from a single compound might not be sufficient for the prediction of toxicity in a complex working environment. It is planned 2 other studies on behalf of this scope, namely in organic solvents mixtures (styrene and xylene) and in hexavalent chromium, nickel, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons mixture. In summary, it is intended that these types of studies give a highlight in the information regarding mixtures of chemicals and the resulting effects of that possible combinations, taking into account the MoA of each component by itself.