Journal article
Retrospective blood lead assessment from archived clotted erythrocyte fraction in a cohort of lead-exposed mother-child dyads
The Science of the total environment, Vol.754, 142166
02/01/2021
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142166
PMCID: PMC7686297
PMID: 32920407
Abstract
Exposure to lead (Pb) is linked to a host of adverse health effects. Recent revelations of unmonitored exposures to hazardous levels of lead as seen in the Flint Water Crisis have manifested a need for evaluating biological samples, other than regularly prepared whole blood, for biomonitoring of lead exposure. Here, we present a method utilizing clotted erythrocyte fraction samples, which are commonly archived along with serum (or plasma) in biorepositories, to predict whole blood lead levels to allow for retrospective assessments of environmental exposure to lead. Whole blood and clotted erythrocyte fraction samples were collected from 91 participants in the Airborne Exposure to Semivolatile Organic Pollutants (AESOP) cohort study of mother-child dyads. Clotted erythrocyte fraction samples were prepared either using microwave assisted acid digestion or alkaline dilution and subsequently analyzed for lead using Inductively-couple plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Simultaneously withdrawn whole blood samples were also analyzed. A strong linear relationship was observed between lead in whole blood and clotted erythrocyte fraction with Pearson correlation coefficients (r) of 0.90, and 0.89 (p < 0.001) for acid digestion and alkaline dilution, respectively. Slopes and intercepts from simple linear regression models of the two clotted erythrocyte fraction methods were not found to be significantly different (p > 0.05) when compared to the standard blood lead assay method. Modeled blood lead predicted from clotted erythrocyte fraction was evaluated at a test threshold of 3 μg/dL was found to have diagnostic sensitivity of 88% and specificity of 100%. Results from this study demonstrate clotted erythrocyte fraction samples are a viable alternative biological sample for retrospective public health surveillance of environmental exposure to lead.
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•Whole blood lead levels were predicted using clotted erythrocyte fraction.•Two sample-preparation methods, acid digestion and alkaline dilution, were evaluated.•Lead was strongly correlated between whole blood and clotted erythrocyte fraction.•Clotted erythrocyte fraction is a viable alternative for retrospective surveillance of lead exposure.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Retrospective blood lead assessment from archived clotted erythrocyte fraction in a cohort of lead-exposed mother-child dyads
- Creators
- Ezazul Haque - Human Toxicology Program, Graduate College, University of Iowa, United States of AmericaMargaret E Moran - Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, United States of AmericaPeter S Thorne - Human Toxicology Program, Graduate College, University of Iowa, United States of America
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- The Science of the total environment, Vol.754, 142166
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142166
- PMID
- 32920407
- PMCID
- PMC7686297
- NLM abbreviation
- Sci Total Environ
- ISSN
- 0048-9697
- eISSN
- 1879-1026
- Publisher
- Elsevier B.V
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000002, name: National Institutes of Health
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 02/01/2021
- Academic Unit
- Civil and Environmental Engineering; Occupational and Environmental Health; Iowa Superfund Research Program
- Record Identifier
- 9984000928002771
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