AAAR 37th Annual Conference October 14 - October 18, 2019 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Mimicking the Human Respiratory System: Online In Vitro Cell Exposure and Toxicity Assessment of Welding Fume Aerosol
RYAN WARD, Trevor Tilly, Sarah Robinson, Arantzazu Eiguren Fernandez, Jun Wang, Tara Sabo-Attwood, Chang-Yu Wu, University of Florida
Abstract Number: 650 Working Group: From Aerosol Dosimetry and Toxicology to Health
Abstract The use of air-liquid interface (ALI) cell culture exposures are of rising interest due to their potential for improving in vitro toxicological studies. A novel ALI system, the Dosimetric Aerosol In Vitro Inhalation Device (DAVID), has been demonstrated for effective particle deposition to ALI cell culture. Additionally, this system uses water-based condensation to enhance particle deposition, which is bioinspired by the human respiratory system. In this study, welding fumes, a well-established source of airborne particle toxicity, were used to demonstrate the ability of DAVID to generate unique, dose-dependent toxic responses between two welding conditions: a baseline welding fume and an amorphous silica-coated welding fume created through the addition of tetramethylsilane (TMS) to the shielding gas flow for decreased toxicity. With the lactate dehydrogenase assay, the cells cultured at the ALI had over 50% decrease in viability in just eight minutes of exposure to baseline welding fumes, while the cells exposed to TMS-coated welding fumes had just a 10% decrease in viability over the same exposure time and exposure dose of 275 μg/cm2. DAVID delivers a substantial dose in minutes making it beneficial over previous systems which require hours of exposure. These results demonstrate a proof-of-concept for the effectiveness of TMS to reduce toxicity to cell culture, and also the ability of DAVID to generate a distinct toxicological response for the aerosol being exposed. The submerged cell culture toxicity analysis was also performed for comparison and showed a relative decrease in toxicity after TMS was added to the shielding gas, but this trend was only observable after doses greater than 100 μg/mL. The difference between the ALI and submerged cell culture results indicates the sensitivity of the ALI cell culture approach in comparison to the submerged cell culture. Further work to quantify uncertainties in the prediction of deposited dose through DAVID is recommended.