Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Agricultural workers are at greater risk for developing respiratory effects such as chronic bronchitis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, asthma, and chronic bronchitis. Inhalation of agricultural environment aerosols has been shown to impact the respiratory health of workers. The agricultural environment is very complex and contains microbes, viruses, pesticides, gaseous and other agents including lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and glyphosate. These substances are regularly inhaled by workers during their work shifts. Our work looks at the inflammatory potential from inhalation of common agricultural contaminants, LPS and glyphosate. LPS is a microbial molecule which is ubiquitous in the environment. Glyphosate is the main active ingredient in most herbicides. We intranasally (instillation through the nose) exposed mice with LPS, glyphosate, and combined LPS/glyphosate. Following exposure, we collected samples, and looked at differences in markers of inflammation activated between the short (1, 5 days) and longer-term treatments (10, 20 days). Initial results show that a single combined exposure of LPS/glyphosate caused more lung inflammation as compared to either component alone. More information about the LPS/glyphosate induced lung inflammatory responses help us figure out an effective way of regulating/controlling this inflammation. This information may contribute to improving the respiratory health of agricultural workers who are responsible for feeding the world.