Mental health burden and neuropsychiatric deficits of chronic arsenic exposure: First results of the Vietnamese field study

AbstractChronic arsenic exposure causes skin cancer, although the underlying molecular mechanisms are not well defined. Altered microRNA and mRNA expression likely play a pivotal role in carcinogenesis. Changes in genome-wide differential expression of miRNA and mRNA at 3 strategic time points upon chronic sodium arsenite (As3+) exposure were investigated in a well-validated HaCaT cell line model of arsenic-induced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC). Quadruplicate independent HaCaT cell cultures were exposed to 0 or 100 nM As3+ for up to 28-weeks (wk). Cell growth was monitored throughout the course of exposure and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) was examined employing immunoblot. Differentially expressed miRNA and mRNA profiles were generated at 7, 19, and 28-wk by RNA-seq, followed by identification of differentially expressed mRNA targets of differentially expressed miRNAs through expression pairing at each time point. Pathway analyses were performed for total differentially expressed mRNAs and for the miRNA targeted mRNAs at each time point. RNA-seq predictions were validated by immunoblot of selected target proteins. While the As3+-exposed cells grew slower initially, growth was equal to that of unexposed cells by 19-wk (transformation initiation), and exposed cells subsequently grew faster than passage-matched unexposed cells. As3+-exposed cells had undergone EMT at 28-wk. Pathway analyses demonstrate dysregulation of carcinogenesis-related pathways and networks in a complex coordinated manner at each time point. Immunoblot data largely corroborate RNA-seq predictions in the endoplasmic reticulum stress (ER stress) pathway. This study provides a detailed molecular picture of changes occurring during the arsenic-induced transformation of human keratinocytes.

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Autophagy mediates bronchial cell malignant transformation induced by chronic arsenic exposure via MEK/ERK1/2 pathway

Toxicology Letters ◽

10.1016/j.toxlet.2020.06.006 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 332 ◽

pp. 155-163 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Linqing Wu ◽

Zengbin Wang ◽

Xiaotong Li ◽

Xiaoli He ◽

Yanfei Han ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Malignant Transformation ◽

Arsenic Exposure ◽

Chronic Arsenic Exposure

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COVID-19-related anxiety disorder in Iraq during the pandemic: an online cross-sectional study

Middle East Current Psychiatry ◽

10.1186/s43045-020-00067-4 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Saad Kazim Karim ◽

Perjan Hashim Taha ◽

Nazar Mohammad Mohammad Amin ◽

Habeeb Shuhaib Ahmed ◽

Miami Kadhim Yousif ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Mental Health ◽

Anxiety Disorder ◽

Health Care Professionals ◽

Communicable Disease ◽

Health Anxiety ◽

Psychological State ◽

Academic Degree ◽

Public Health Burden ◽

Health Burden

Abstract Background The COVID-19 outbreak is an unprecedented global public health burden, which popped up in China in late 2019 to early 2020 and distributed worldwide rapidly. Indeed, this pandemic transmission has raised global physical and mental health concerns. Mental health issues that concur with this public health emergency may pose anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder. In Iraq, there are no registered known data on the psychological consequence of the public during the communicable disease outbreak. The ongoing study aims to address the paucity of these data as an appraisal of the mental health burden represented by anxiety disorder related to the global COVID-19 era. Results Among the 1591 Iraqi respondents, 788 (49.5%) accounted for having health anxiety over the current home restriction situation. Younger ages experienced more COVID-19-related health anxiety compared to older ages. Females reported higher health anxiety compared to males (57.7% vs 42.3%). The health care professionals reported 20.9% health anxiety. The Iraqi southern population displayed more health anxiety compared to the northern and middle portions. This work showed about half of the respondents were spending over 60 min focusing on news of COVID-19. We found that 80 to 90% carrying out preventive efforts and home quarantine against COVID-19 infection. Interestingly, participants experienced fear from the risk of COVID-19 infection, whether more or equal to a level of war scare, in 70.1% of the sample. Conclusions In Iraq, during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly half of the respondents have health anxiety. Southern Iraqi cities displayed higher rates of anxiety. Also, being female, younger ages, holding an academic degree, or being a college student are associated with more prominent degrees of anxiety. Furtherly, it is important to adopt strategies for public health education and prevention and alerting future governmental responses focusing on psychological state impact among the general population.

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