Lydia Contreras. PhD

Description:

Air pollution, such as particulate matter (PM) involves complex mixtures. As of recent, air pollution health effects have been linked to several diseases that largely affect the global population. Despite increasing association of air pollution to higher rates of mortality and hospitalizations via epidemiological studies, mechanistic understanding of how air pollution mixtures affect health at the cellular and biomolecular level lags behind. Here, we will discuss our  use of newly developed models and tools to identify new biomarkers of air pollution exposure and cellular susceptibility. First, our studies have shown that both population-level and single-cell level transcriptional signatures of cells exposed to different types of airborne PM remodel unique biological pathways.  Second, we have demonstrated that alterations in these transcriptional signatures translate to measurable cellular toxicity phenotypes.  Lastly, we have also demonstrated that changes to morphological characteristics of cells induced by PM exposures capture cellular susceptibility to different mixtures.