- According to the WHO, 7 million deaths per year are recorded due to exposure to air pollution.
- PM 10 particles induce oxidative stress, inflammatory processes and damage to DNA, which generates genomic instability and cancer.
- Pollution is an important risk factor for tumor formation, especially lung cancer.
The development that the world has registered during the last decades has had a serious consequence and it is environmental pollution. It is a characteristic that is present in large cities and beyond the discomfort it generates, it also has a direct relationship with health. The worst thing is that it is a risk factor for tumor formation.
In this regard, Miguel Santibáñez Andrade, an academic from the UNAM Faculty of Sciencesexplained to researchers and academics from the Institute of Atmosphere Sciences and Climate Change (ICAyCC) that it is necessary to understand the biological mechanisms through which PM 10 is a risk factor in the cancer development.
By participating in the chat “Air polluting aeroparticles as a risk factor in the development of cancer”, carried out in the Julián Adem Auditorium, of the ICAyCC, the also researcher in Medical Sciences of the INCan shared that studies in his work group show that PM 10 induces oxidative stress, as well as inflammatory processes, cytotoxic and genotoxic damage. Of the latter, the problem is the generation of genomic instability, characterized by an increase in the presence of alterations in the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).
The scientist has shown that in gene regulation processes during the cell cycle, PM 10 are capable of acting as an initiating factor and promoter of the carcinogenic process and the frequency of this type of alteration is associated with loss of control in functions such as DNA replication and repair, chromosome segregation, and cell cycle progression.
“We are going against the clock with respect to knowing what is the negative impact (of exposure to particulate matter) in principle, as well as the positive impact of reductions in particulate matter in the air. But one of the aspects that worries us is just to see how these effects influence in the long term. In addition to cancer, another example is what happens with diabetes and gestational risk: prenatal exposure to pollution already generates susceptibility in an individual who has not even breathed on their own for the first time.
Environmental contamination, risk factor for the formation of tumors
In turn, the deputy director of Basic Research of the INCan, Claudia Maria Garcia Cuellarcommented that a study presented in 2002 by the then Center for Atmospheric Sciences gave rise to concerns about developing research focused on understanding the cellular mechanisms involved in the development of neoplasms associated with exposure to particulate matter, since it was suggested that there could be a relationship, but the problem had not been addressed from a biological point of view.
“Today it is known that in the world there are 7 million deaths due to exposure to air pollution, generating multiple health problems, such as cerebrovascular disorders, cardiovascular disorders and respiratory problems, including lung cancer.”
Among the different types of cancer, in 2020 lung cancer was the second most frequent neoplasm worldwide, after breast cancer, which reveals the great health problem.
“Lung cancer is 70 percent associated with smoking, but the remaining 30 percent is linked to air pollution. And we now know that, in terms of mortality, it ranks first, unlike breast cancer, whose mortality is much lower due to early detection and treatment strategies, something that is not yet the case with lung cancer.”
Additionally, an association has been seen between areas strongly affected by air pollution with the incidence of tumors in the respiratory tract. In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) updated the criteria to establish the maximum permitted levels of pollutants in the air, where it indicates that 15 parts per million of PM 2.5 should be recorded annually in 24 hours; and up to 45 parts per million of PM 10 in one day.
Ericka Marel Quezada Maldonado, from INCan’s Carcinogenesis and Environment Laboratory, pointed out that studies on cell lines exposed to PM 10 have shown regulation problems in microRNA molecules in cells, which could be related to the development of certain types of cancer.
“Among the repair factors that could be altered by the changes in the micro-RNAs that we found deregulated were genes that could be impacted either by one or several micro-RNAs, and this could represent a general problem in the pathways of repair”.
The researcher specified that since 1995 it has been suggested that PM 10 may have mutagenicity factors, especially due to DNA damage that is repaired under normal conditions, allowing cell survival. However, when the damage cannot be corrected, and the cells survive it, genomic instability and the induction of carcinogenic processes are generated.
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