The Study Of Autophgy In Alveolar Macrophages Of Patients With Coal Worker Pneumoconiosis

Objects Researching the differences of autophagy activity of alveolar macrophages indifferent periods coal workers pneumoconiosis(CWP), to investigate the relationshipbetween the autophagy activity and pathological changes of pulmonary fibrosis inducedby coal dust, and expound the possible regulatory mechanism.Methods116cases of coal mine workers were investigated, their lung lavage fluid wascollected and purified to get alveolar macrophages. We adopted the method oftransmission electron microscopy (TEM) to observe the autophagy related structure andwestern blotting to detect the expression of autophagy protein LC3and autophagyregulatory proteins beclin1, mTOR and p-mTOR, to analysis the changes of the alveolarmacrophage autophagy activity of pneumoconiosis observation object, one, two and threeperiod of CWP. People with lung diseases (such as pneumonia, lung cancer, activetuberculosis, etc), pneumoconiosis with pulmonary complications, severecardiopulmonary diseases and infectious diseases were excluded. According to years ofdust exposure, the investigated workers were divided into different groups to ananlyzethe effect of the dose of dust to autophagy activity. According to out of dust or not, theinvestigated workers were divided into continuous dust exposure group and internittentdust exposure group to ananlyze the effect of out of dust to autophagy activity. Accordingto years of out of dust, the internittent dust exposure group was divided into two group toananlyze the effect of years of out of dust to autophagy activity.Results In this study, all the investigated workers are the Han nationality and man. Themean age of them is (47.50±6.53) years old (27~64years old). The typ of their workincludes coal digger, developping man, heading man, haulageman, maintenance workerand so on. The mean years of dust exposure of three period of CWP is longer than that ofpneumoconiosis observation objects and one period of CWP. All the changes ofmacrophage autophagy activity in the different periods patients with coal workerspneumoconiosis shows that the number of autophagosomes in pulmonary macrophage ofthe two period of CWP is more than that of the one period of CWP. The number ofautophagosomes in pulmonary macrophage of the three period of CWP is less than that ofthe two period of CWP. The quantity of LC3Ⅱ/Ⅰ and Beclin1in pulmonarymacrophages of the two period of CWP is higher than that of the one period of CWP. The quantity of LC3Ⅱ/Ⅰ a nd Beclin1in pulmonary macrophages of the three period ofCWPis lower than that of the two period of CWP. The quantity of LC3Ⅱ/Ⅰ in pulmonarymacrophages of the three period of CWP is higher than that of the one period of CWP.The quantity of Beclin1in pulmonary macrophages of the two period of CWP is higerthan that of pneumoconiosis observation objects. The quantity of mTOR and p-mTOR inpulmonary macrophages of the two period of CWP is lower than that of pneumoconiosisobservation objects and the one period of CWP. The quantity of mTOR and p-mTOR inpulmonary macrophages of the three period of CWP is higher than that of the two periodof CWP. After comparison the autophagy related proteins in different groups withdifferent years of dust exposure, we found that LC3Ⅱ/Ⅰ expressed less in31~40years group than that in21~30years group, Beclin1expressed less in31~40yearsgroup than that in0~10years group,and the quantity of mTOR and p-mTOR is more in31~40years group than that in21~30years group.We also compared the expression ofautophagy related protein between continuous dust exposure group and internittent dustexposure group. The expression of LC3Ⅱ/Ⅰ in internittent dust exposure group is higerthan that of continuous dust exposure group. The expression of mTOR and p-mTOR ininternittent dust exposure group is lower than that of continuous dust exposure group.The expression of LC3Ⅱ/Ⅰ a nd Beclin1in1~10years of out of dust group is lower thanthat of11~20years of out of dust group. The expression of mTOR and p-mTOR in1~10years of out of dust group is higher than that of11~20years of out of dust group.Conclusions The low activity of autophagy may be one of the reasons what effect thedevelopment of pulmonary fibrosis. Exposing to dust for too long time will lead to thelower activity of autophagy. Out of dust may recover the autophagy activity in pulmonarymacrophage of coal workers pneumoconiosis. The activity of alveolar macrophages isstonger in CWP with more years of out of dust.