10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Development of a Computerized Nose-Only Inhalation Chamber for Nanotoxicology Study
WEI-HSUAN CHEN, Ming-Yeng Lin, Chih-Ching Chang, National Cheng Kung University
Abstract Number: 1654 Working Group: Aerosol Toxicology
Abstract Considerable scientific attention has been given to the exposure of ultrafine particles (UFPs) due to its role in pathogenicity. However, the relationship between the inhalation dose and response for UFP is still not very clear, resulting in the uncertainty of the dose. One reason is that the particle generation system is not very well controlled. Here, LabVIEW was used to control the computerized nose-only inhalation chamber to a selected number concentration of the test particle. We used ultrafine carbon black (ufCB) as the model UFP. The ufCB were generated by the nebulizer and then conditioned to a temperature and relative humidity of 23.5±0.5 ˚C and 55±2 %, respectively, before entering the nose-only inhalation chamber. Preliminary studies indicate that the developed particle generation system can control the particle number concentration to within 5% of the selected number concentration (6×105 #/cm3) in the inhalation chamber. The geometric mean diameter and geometric standard deviation was within 5 % of 90 nm and 1.76, respectively. We exposed the rats 6 hours a day, for a total of 5 days. There were significant increases in bronchoalveolar neutrophils, but no increase in protein leakages, and TNF-alpha and VEGF productions. Importantly, the proliferation of alveolar type II cells was significantly elevated in ufCB exposed rats, compared with those exposed to clean air. The results indicate that ufCB exposure may cause significant pulmonary epithelial cell damages, without eliciting pulmonary inflammatory response. The developed computerized nose-only inhalation chamber can benefit future toxicology and pathogenesis research.