TY - JOUR
T1 - Comprehensive Blood Metabolome and Exposome Analysis, Annotation, and Interpretation in E-Waste Workers
AU - Pang, Zhiqiang
AU - Viau, Charles
AU - Fobil, Julius N.
AU - Basu, Niladri
AU - Xia, Jianguo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 by the authors.
PY - 2024/12
Y1 - 2024/12
N2 - Background: Electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) production has emerged to be of global environmental public health concern. E-waste workers, who are frequently exposed to hazardous chemicals through occupational activities, face considerable health risks. Methods: To investigate the metabolic and exposomic changes in these workers, we analyzed whole blood samples from 100 male e-waste workers and 49 controls from the GEOHealth II project (2017–2018 in Accra, Ghana) using LC-MS/MS. A specialized computational workflow was established for exposomics data analysis, incorporating two curated reference libraries for metabolome and exposome profiling. Two feature detection algorithms, asari and centWave, were applied. Results: In comparison to centWave, asari showed better sensitivity in detecting MS features, particularly at trace levels. Principal component analysis demonstrated distinct metabolic profiles between e-waste workers and controls, revealing significant disruptions in key metabolic pathways, including steroid hormone biosynthesis, drug metabolism, bile acid biosynthesis, vitamin metabolism, and prostaglandin biosynthesis. Correlation analyses linked metal exposures to alterations in hundreds to thousands of metabolic features. Functional enrichment analysis highlighted significant perturbations in pathways related to liver function, vitamin metabolism, linoleate metabolism, and dynorphin signaling, with the latter being observed for the first time in e-waste workers. Conclusions: This study provides new insights into the biological impact of prolonged metal exposure in e-waste workers.
AB - Background: Electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) production has emerged to be of global environmental public health concern. E-waste workers, who are frequently exposed to hazardous chemicals through occupational activities, face considerable health risks. Methods: To investigate the metabolic and exposomic changes in these workers, we analyzed whole blood samples from 100 male e-waste workers and 49 controls from the GEOHealth II project (2017–2018 in Accra, Ghana) using LC-MS/MS. A specialized computational workflow was established for exposomics data analysis, incorporating two curated reference libraries for metabolome and exposome profiling. Two feature detection algorithms, asari and centWave, were applied. Results: In comparison to centWave, asari showed better sensitivity in detecting MS features, particularly at trace levels. Principal component analysis demonstrated distinct metabolic profiles between e-waste workers and controls, revealing significant disruptions in key metabolic pathways, including steroid hormone biosynthesis, drug metabolism, bile acid biosynthesis, vitamin metabolism, and prostaglandin biosynthesis. Correlation analyses linked metal exposures to alterations in hundreds to thousands of metabolic features. Functional enrichment analysis highlighted significant perturbations in pathways related to liver function, vitamin metabolism, linoleate metabolism, and dynorphin signaling, with the latter being observed for the first time in e-waste workers. Conclusions: This study provides new insights into the biological impact of prolonged metal exposure in e-waste workers.
KW - e-waste
KW - exposomics
KW - mass spectrometry
KW - metabolomics
KW - metals
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85213377511&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/metabo14120671
DO - 10.3390/metabo14120671
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85213377511
SN - 2218-1989
VL - 14
JO - Metabolites
JF - Metabolites
IS - 12
M1 - 671
ER -