Skip Navigation


Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access originally published online on July 28, 2009
Annals of Occupational Hygiene 2009 53(7):713-722; doi:10.1093/annhyg/mep052
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
53/7/713    most recent
mep052v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Saito, R.
Right arrow Articles by Reynolds, S. J.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Saito, R.
Right arrow Articles by Reynolds, S. J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?


© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Occupational Hygiene Society

Recombinant Factor C (rFC) Assay and Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) Analysis of Endotoxin Variability in Four Agricultural Dusts

Rena Saito1,*, Brian K. Cranmer1, John D. Tessari1, Lennart Larsson2, John M. Mehaffy1, Thomas J. Keefe1 and Stephen J. Reynolds1

1 Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
2 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Section of Medical Microbiology, University of Lund, Sölvegatan 23, 223 62 Lund, Sweden

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +304-285-6178; fax: +304-285-5820; e-mail: hve5{at}cdc.gov

Endotoxin exposure is a significant concern in agricultural environments due to relatively high exposure levels. The goals of this study were to determine patterns of 3-hydroxy fatty acid (3-OHFA) distribution in dusts from four types of agricultural environments (dairy, cattle feedlot, grain elevator, and corn farm) and to evaluate correlations between the results of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analysis (total endotoxin) and biological recombinant factor C (rFC) assay (free bioactive endotoxin). An existing GC/MS-MS method (for house dust) was modified to reduce sample handling and optimized for small amount (<1 mg) of agricultural dusts using GC/EI-MS. A total of 134 breathing zone samples using Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM) inhalable samplers were collected from agricultural workers in Colorado and Nebraska. Livestock dusts contained approximately two times higher concentrations of 3-OHFAs than grain dusts. Patterns of 3-OHFA distribution and proportion of each individual 3-OHFA varied by dust type. The rank order of Pearson correlations between the biological rFC assay and the modified GC/EI-MS results was feedlot (0.72) > dairy (0.53) > corn farm (0.33) > grain elevator (0.11). In livestock environments, both odd- and even-numbered carbon chain length 3-OHFAs correlated with rFC assay response. The GC/EI-MS method should be especially useful for identification of specific 3-OHFAs for endotoxins from various agricultural environments and may provide useful information for evaluating the relationship between bacterial exposure and respiratory disease among agricultural workers.

Keywords: agriculture • endotoxins • lipopolysaccharides • organic dust

Received December 23, 2008; in final form June 17, 2009


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.