The Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill upon Lung Health—Mouse Model-Based RNA-Seq Analyses

Yao-Zhong Liu, Charles A Miller, Yan Zhuang, Sudurika S Mukhopadhyay, Shigeki Saito, Edward B. Overton and Gilbert F Morris
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Yao-Zhong Liu: Department of Biostatistics and Data Science, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Charles A Miller: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Yan Zhuang: Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Environmental Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Sudurika S Mukhopadhyay: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Shigeki Saito: Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Environmental Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Edward B. Overton: Environmental Sciences Department, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70112, USA
Gilbert F Morris: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 15, 1-23

Abstract: We used a transcriptomic approach to interrogate the effects of a saline-accommodated fraction from the Macondo 252 well (MC252) oil and Corexit dispersants on lung tissue. Wild-type C57BL/6 male and female mice were exposed on days 0, 7 and 13 by oropharyngeal aspiration to saline accommodated fractions (SAF) of crude oil from the Macondo (MC252) well, Corexit 9500, Corexit 9527, 9500+oil and 9527+oil or a saline solution as the vehicle control. These treatments did not cause overt toxicity, with the exception of the Corexit exposures which caused brief weight loss after the first exposure. On day 14, total RNA was isolated from the left lung for RNA-seq analyses. KEGG-pathway-based differential expression revealed that Corexit 9527 elicited the strongest changes involving the upregulation of 19 KEGG pathways (FDR < 0.10), followed by Corexit 9500 with the upregulation of seven pathways (FDR < 0.10). As an important signature, pathways related to a response to DNA damage (e.g., p53 signaling and mismatch repair) dominate those upregulated by Corexit 9527 and Corexit 9500. In addition, pro-inflammatory pathways (e.g., cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, IL-17 signaling pathway and TNF signaling pathways) were upregulated selectively in oil-treated male mice. Surprisingly, oil + dispersant combinations caused lesser effects than the individual treatments at the transcriptomic level. Overall, these findings support potential genotoxicity, inflammation and cell death due to dispersant or oil exposures. Similar exposures to lung tumor bearing K-Ras LA1 mice provided evidence for tumor promotion by oil and Corexit dispersant treatments. Our mouse RNA-seq analyses may be relevant to the pulmonary health hazards of MC252 oil and dispersants experienced in exposed populations.

Keywords: BP oil spill; RNA-seq; lung cancer; dispersant; Corexit 9527; DNA damage; lung inflammation; K-Ras LA1 mice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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