Sub-chronic pulmonary transcriptional response to coal tar, a PAH-containing complex mixture, in adult male MutaTMMouse.. Mus musculus

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a class of hundreds of structurally similar chemicals ubiquitously present in our environment. They are created during the incomplete combustion of organic materials, such as oil, wood, tobacco, and charbroiled meat. As such, human exposure to mixtures of PAHs can occur through consumption of PAH-containing foods and water, inhalation of polluted air, or dermal contact. Several PAHs have been classified as carcinogenic to humans or probably carcinogenic to humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The mice in this study were exposed to a complex mixture of PAHs - coal tar. In the present study, we sought to determine the dose-dependent changes in gene expression upon oral exposure to this PAH mixture in the lung tissue. Adult male MutaTMMouse were exposed to three doses of the coal tar or vehicle control (olive oil) for 28 days and sacrificed three days after the final exposure. Overall design: This experiment examined the pulmonary transcriptional response of male mice exposed to coal tar extract for 28 days at three different doses, including D1 (1.3 mg BaP equivalents/kg-bw/day), D2 (2.5 mg BaP equivalents/kg-bw/day), and D3 (5.1 mg BaP equivalents/kg-bw/day) and vehicle control (D0). Each dose group was examined 72 hours following the final exposure. Each dose group had 5 biological replicates. There were a total of 20 samples (arrays) from the lung included in the final analysis using a two-colour reference design.