Use of transcriptomics to study mechanism of the action of complex mixtures of organic compounds occurring in the ambient air focusing on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) represent a large group of organic compounds occuring as pollutants in ambient air. Besides their genotoxic effect, some of them are known to be complete carcinogens and act via nongenotoxic and tumor promoting mechanism. Although effects of many individual compounds are well-documented, human exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air occurs through complex mixtures and only few studies describe the behavior of PAH in real complex mixtures. The first part of the thesis is dealing with the global gene expression changes in human embryonic lung fibroblasts (HEL) as a consequence of the effect of complex mixtures containing PAH extracted from the respirable airborne particles PM2.5. These particles were collected in 4 localities in the Czech republic (Ostrava - Bartovice, Ostrava - Poruba, Karviná, Třeboň) differing in the level of the air pollution. Gene expression changes induced by three subtoxic concentrations of organic extracts (EOM - extractable organic matter) from each locality after 24 hour incubation were examined by microarray analysis. Pathway analysis using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database was applied to interpret gene expression data. In each locality we identified several deregulated signaling pathways..