Elaine Faustman

• University of Washington

A lithium-ion battery is a rechargeable battery that uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy and is the predominant battery type in many industrial and consumer electronics. The lithium-ion batteries are essential to ensure they operate safely. We conducted an exposure assessment five days after a fire in a battery-testing fac...

Plastics and plastic waste have emerged as one of the major challenges of the Anthropence, a so-called “wicked problem” complicated by a myriad of political, economic, cultural, and historical factors. The ubiquity of plastic waste has garnered increased attention from governments, non-profit organizations and the media, in turn expanding mitigativ...

To better define appropriate applications of our 3-dimensional testicular co-culture as a model for reproductive toxicology, we evaluated the ability of the model to capture structural and functional elements that can be targeted by reproductive toxicants. Testicular co-cultures were prepared from postnatal day 5 male rats and cultured with a Matri...

Our prior work shows that azinphos-methyl pesticide exposure is associated with altered oral microbiomes in exposed farmworkers. Here we extend this analysis to show the same association pattern is also evident in their children. Oral buccal swab samples were analyzed at two time points, the apple thinning season in spring-summer 2005 for 78 childr...

Background Characterizing the complexity of environmental exposures in relation to human health is critical to advancing our understanding of health and disease throughout the life span. Extant cohort studies open the door for such investigations more rapidly and inexpensively than launching new cohort studies and the Human Health Exposure Analysis...

The Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) framework is serving as a basis to integrate new data streams in order to enhance the power of predictive toxicology. AOP development for engineered nanomaterials (ENM), including silver nanoparticles (AgNP), is currently lagging behind other chemicals of regulatory interest due to our limited understanding of the...

Preferential Ag deposition in female kidneys has been reported in subacute and subchronic oral gavage and inhalation studies of various sizes of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). In these in vivo animal studies, female kidneys were shown to accumulate 3-4 times more silver than male kidneys. The current 28-day oral gavage study of AgNPs administered to...

Silver nanoparticles (AgNP) are used in multiple applications but primarily in the manufacturing of antimicrobial products. Previous studies have identified AgNP toxicity in airway epithelial cells, but no in vitro studies to date have used organotypic cultures as a high-content in vitro model of the conducting airway to characterize the effects of...

Recently revised OECD inhalation toxicity testing guidelines require measurements of lung burden immediately after and for periods following exposure for nanomaterials. Lung burden is a function of pulmonary deposition and retention of nanoparticles. Using lung burden studies as per OECD guidelines, it may be possible to assess clearance mechanisms...

The exposome provides a conceptual model for identifying and characterizing lifetime environmental exposures and resultant health effects. In this study, we applied key exposome concepts to look specifically at the neurodevelopmental pesticide exposome, which focuses on exposures to pesticides that have the potential to cause an adverse neurodevelo...

Children’s consumer products represent an important exposure source for many toxicants. Chemicals of high concern, as designated by the Washington State Child Safe Product Act include phthalates, Bisphenol A (BPA) and parabens, among others. As regulation and reporting requirements increase, so has demand for safer alternatives. This project examin...

We characterize temporal pathway dynamics of differentiation in an in vitro neurotoxicity model with the aim of informing design and interpretation of toxicological assays. Human neural progenitor cells (hNPCs) were cultured in differentiation conditions up to 21 days. Genes significantly changed through time were identified and grouped according t...

The airway epithelium is critical for maintaining innate and adaptive immune responses, and occupational exposures that disrupt its immune homeostasis may initiate and amplify airway inflammation. In our previous study, we demonstrated that silver nanoparticles (AgNP), which are engineered nanomaterials used in multiple applications but primarily i...

Silver nanoparticles (AgNP) are used in multiple applications but primarily in the manufacturing of antimicrobial products. Previous studies have identified AgNP toxicity in airway epithelial cells, but no in vitro studies to date have used organotypic cultures as a high-content in vitro model of the conducting airway to characterize the effects of...

Silver nanoparticles (AgNP) are used in multiple applications but primarily in the manufacturing of antimicrobial products. AgNP toxicity in the respiratory system is well characterized, but few in vitro or in vivo studies have evaluated the effects of interactions between host genetic and acquired factors, or gene × environment interactions (G×E)...

The take-home pathway is a significant source of organophosphate pesticide exposure for young children (3-5 years old) living with an adult farmworker. This avoidable exposure pathway is an important target for intervention. We selected 24 agricultural communities in the Yakima Valley of Washington State and randomly assigned them to receive an edu...

Reducing residential pesticide exposure requires identification of exposure pathways. Compared to the agriculture worker 'take-home' and residential use pathways, evidence of the 'drift' pathway to pesticide exposure has been inconsistent. Questionnaire data from individuals (n = 99) and dust samples (n = 418) from households across three growing s...

Background Information on particle deposition, retention and clearance are important for the evaluation of the risk of inhaled nanomaterials to human health. Recent revised OECD inhalation toxicity test guidelines require to evaluate the lung burden of nanomaterials after rodent subacute and subchronic inhalation exposure (OECD 412, OECD 413). Thes...

Background: Children are especially vulnerable to pesticide exposure and can suffer lasting health effects. Because children of farmworkers are exposed to a variety of pesticides throughout development, it is important to explore temporal patterns of coexposures. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to characterize the pesticide co-expo...

Background To investigate the effect of subacute intravenous administration AgNP (silver nanoparticles, 10 nm) and AuNP (gold nanoparticles, 12.8 nm) and AgNP/AuNP mixture to blood biochemistry, hematology, and platelet coagulation, subacute toxicity study was conducted. Methods AuNP and AgNP in which their size distribution was not statistically...

Gold (AuNPs, 12.8 nm) and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs, 10 nm), mixed or separate, were injected into the caudal vein of male Sprague–Dawley rats for 4 weeks. The rats were allowed to recover for further 4 weeks to examine the differences in AuNP/AgNP tissue distribution and clearance. The size distribution of injected AuNPs and AgNPs were not stati...

Micromass culture systems have been developed as three-dimensional organotypic in vitro alternatives to test developmental toxicity. We have optimized a murine-based embryonic midbrain micromass system in two genetic strains to evaluate neurodevelopmental effects of gold-cored silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) of differing sizes and coatings-20 nm AgCit...

Whole-metagenome sequencing (WMS) has emerged as a powerful tool to assess potential public health risks in marine environments by measuring changes in microbial community structure and function in uncultured bacteria. In addition to monitoring public health risks such as antibiotic resistance determinants, it is essential to measure predictors of...

Puget2 project metadata for 7 sample sites. (DOCX)

Percentages of most common phyla for 11 metagenomic samples among all detected phyla. (XLSX)

DNA sequence recruitment plots for the marina site sampled in different seasons. Vertical lines represent overlapping individual DNA sequence reads mapping by genomic position to the marine bacterium, Rhodobacterales HTCC2255. BLASTN similarity searching reveals a 3-fold greater abundance of reads mapping in summer versus winter metagenomic samples...

Linear regression of bacterial class abundance versus salinity for 14 Puget1 and Puget2 project samples. (DOCX)

Linear regression of bacterial class abundance versus salinity versus temperature for 14 Puget1 and Puget2 project samples. (DOCX)

Puget1 and Puget2 analysis framework. (DOCX)

Graphene oxides possess unique physicochemical properties with important potential applications in electronics, pharmaceuticals, and medicine. However, the toxicity following inhalation exposure to graphene oxide has not yet been clarified. Therefore, this study conducted a short-term graphene oxide inhalation toxicity analysis using a nose-only in...

Engineered nanomaterials are currently under review for their potential toxicity; however, their use in consumer/commercial products has continued to outpace risk assessments. In vitro methods may be utilized as tools to improve the efficiency of risk assessment approaches. We propose a framework to compare relationships between previously publishe...

In vitro micromass culture systems have been proposed as an alternative method for developmental toxicity assessment to reduce the need for resource-intensive in vivo toxicity testing. In this study, a three-dimensional in vitro embryonic mouse midbrain culture system is characterized in two mouse strains to facilitate gene x environment considerat...

Context: Organophosphorus insecticides (OPs) have been used to control agricultural pests found in Washington state. Farmworkers (FW) have higher exposure to OP pesticides than non-farmworkers (NFW), and FW children may in turn have higher exposure than NFW children. Objective: To examine the association between the concentration in house dust o...

Domoic acid (DA) is an algal toxin which has been associated with significant neurotoxicity in humans, non-human primates, rodents, and marine mammals. Developmental exposure to DA is believed to result in neurotoxicity that may persist into adulthood. DA is produced by harmful algal blooms of Pseudo-nitzschia, raising concerns about the consumptio...

Background: Exposome-related efforts aim to document the totality of human exposures across the lifecourse. This field has advanced rapidly in recent years but lacks practical application to risk assessment, particularly for children's health. Objectives: Our objective was to apply the exposome to children's health risk assessment by introducing...

Antibiotic resistance (AR) is a major global public health threat but few resources exist that catalog AR genes outside of a clinical context. Current AR sequence databases are assembled almost exclusively from genomic sequences derived from clinical bacterial isolates and thus do not include many microbial sequences derived from environmental samp...

Importance: In this study we show in human subjects that organophosphate pesticide exposure is associated with large-scale significant alterations of the oral buccal microbiota composition with extinctions of whole genera suggested in some individuals. Persistence from the spring/summer to the winter of this association also suggests long lasting...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNAs that act as post-transcriptional regulators by silencing messenger RNAs. Because miRNAs do not rapidly degrade, they have the potential to serve as sensitive, predictive, and robust non-invasive biomarkers in bodily fluids. While urinary miRNAs have been used as clinical biomarkers of disease, their rol...

Since 1998, the University of Washington’s Center for Child Environmental Health Risks Research has followed a community-based participatory research strategy in the Lower Yakima Valley of Washington State to assess pesticide exposure among families of Hispanic farmworkers. As a part of this longitudinal study, house dust samples were collected fro...

Our 3-dimensional testis co-culture system (3D-TCS) represents a promising model of male reproductive toxicity which captures sensitive processes of male reproductive development and contains the main testes cell types (germ, Leydig and Sertoli cells). Macrophages are another cell type important for testicular function and help to modulate immuno-e...

Understanding the underlying temporal and mechanistic responses to neurotoxicant exposures during sensitive periods of neuronal development are critical for assessing the impact of these exposures on developmental processes. To investigate the importance of timing of neurotoxicant exposure for perturbation of epigenetic regulation, we exposed human...

Graphenes have emerged as a highly promising, two-dimensional engineered nanomaterial that can possibly substitute carbon nanotubes. They are being explored in numerous R&D and industrial applications in laboratories across the globe, leading to possible human and environmental exposures to them. Yet, there are no published data on graphene exposur...

With the increased production and widespread commercial use of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), human and environmental exposures to silver nanoparticles are inevitably increasing. In particular, persons manufacturing and handling silver nanoparticles and silver nanoparticle containing products are at risk of exposure, potentially resulting in health...

Background: Studies suggest that some of the greatest exposure to OPs in children occurs in agricultural communities and various pathways of exposure including the take-home pathway, proximity to orchards, and diet have been explored. However, the importance of the dietary pathway of exposure for children in agricultural communities is not well un...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are post-transcriptional regulators that silence messenger RNAs. Because miRNAs are stable at room temperature and long-lived, they have been proposed as molecular biomarkers to monitor disease and exposure status. While urinary miRNAs have been used clinically as potential diagnostic markers for kidney and bladder cancers and ot...

We have developed an in vitro model of testis development (3D-TCS) using rat testicular cells overlaid with extracellular matrix. One barrier preventing utilization of in vitro models in toxicity testing is the absence of metabolic capability. Another challenge is lack of kinetic data for compounds in vitro. We characterized metabolic capabilities...

We have developed a three-dimensional testicular co-culture system (3D-TCS) which mimics in vivo testes. In this study, transcriptomic responses to phthalate esters (PE's) were compared in the 3D-TCS with responses in rat testes in vivo. Microarray data from the 3D-TCS and from in vivo testes were used to compare changes in gene expression patterns...

Characterization of stress exposure requires understanding seasonal variability in stress biomarkers. To compare acute and chronic stress biomarkers between two seasons in a cohort of rural, Hispanic mothers. Stress questionnaires and cortisol measurements (hair, blood and saliva) were collected in the summer and fall. Cortisol biomarkers were sign...

Shifting the field of developmental toxicology towards evaluation of pathway perturbation requires a quantitative definition of normal developmental dynamics. This project examined a publicly available dataset to quantify pathway dynamics during testicular development and spermatogenesis and anchor toxicant-perturbed pathways within the context of...

Bisphenol A (BPA) and triclosan (TCS) are two non-persistent chemicals that have been frequently measured in spot urine samples from the general population but less so in pregnant women; however, data are limited on the free (bioactive) and conjugated forms of these phenols. The Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) Study addr...

Abstract Quantum dots (Qdots) are semiconductor nanoparticles with size-tunable fluorescence capabilities with diverse applications. Qdots typically contain cadmium or other heavy metals, hence raising concerns of their potential toxicity, especially in occupational settings where inhalation of nanomaterials may increase the risk of lung disease. A...

Organophosphate pesticides (OPs) are related to ill health among adults, including farmworkers who are exposed to OPs as part of their regular work. Children of both farmworkers and non-farmworkers in agricultural communities may also be affected by pesticide exposure. Study groups of 100 farmworkers with a referent child (aged 2-6 years) and 100 n...

High-throughput genomic technologies offer new approaches for environmental health monitoring, including metagenomic surveillance of antibiotic resistance determinants (ARDs). While natural environments serve as reservoirs for antibiotic resistance genes that can be transferred to pathogenic and human commensal bacteria, monitoring of these determi...

To fully understand the potentially harmful effects of prenatal stress exposure impacts, it is necessary to quantify long-term and episodic stress exposure during pregnancy. There is a strong body of research relating psychological stress to elevated cortisol levels in biomarkers. Recently, maternal hair has been used to measure cortisol levels, an...

The G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling pathway plays an essential role in signal transmission and response to external stimuli in mammalian cells. Protein components of this pathway have been characterized in plants and simpler eukaryotes such as yeast, but their presence and role in unicellular photosynthetic eukaryotes have not been dete...

Quantum dots (QDs) are unique semi-conductor fluorescent nanoparticles with potential uses in a variety of biomedical applications. However, concerns exist regarding their potential toxicity, specifically their capacity to induce oxidative stress and inflammation. In this study we synthesized CdSe/ZnS core/shell QDs with a tri-n-octylphosphine oxid...

Primers and probes for fluorescent 5′nuclease quantitative PCR assays are provided online in the Supporting Information file. (DOCX)

Male reproductive development is a complex process that is sensitive to disruption by a range of toxicants. There is a great need for in vitro models that can evaluate potential male reproductive toxicants. The current unit presents a protocol for preparation of a three-dimensional in vitro model of male reproductive development that reduces the nu...

Domoic acid (DomA) is a potent marine neurotoxin. By activating AMPA/kainate receptors, DomA induces oxidative stress-mediated apoptotic cell death in neurons. The effect of prolonged (10 day) exposure to a low, non-toxic concentration (5 nM) of DomA on acute (intermediate concentration) neurotoxicity of this toxin was investigated in cerebellar gr...

Background Toenail-Hg levels are being used as a marker of methylmercury (MeHg) exposure in efforts to associate exposure with effects such as cardiovascular disease. There is a need to correlate this marker with more established biomarkers that presently underlie existing dose–response relationships in order to compare these relationships across s...

Supplemental Material. Provides additional text to description found in Methods section on hair-Hg representativeness for each hair sample.

Human-health relevant impacts on marine ecosystems are increasing on both spatial and temporal scales. Traditional indicators for environmental health monitoring and microbial risk assessment have relied primarily on single species analyses and have provided only limited spatial and temporal information. More high-throughput, broad-scale approaches...

Plasmid sequences in the NCBI RefSeq database that match sequence reads from the Puget Sound and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent datasets. (PDF)

Relative abundance (order level) of major taxonomic groups in the Puget Sound samples and other selected metagenomes. Sequences were assigned to the NCBI taxonomy using MG-Rast [39] and the lowest common ancestor algorithm (≥50% identity and alignment length ≥50 amino acids). Taxa representing >1% of assignable sequences in one or more samples are...

Relationship between the relative abundance of predominant taxa and salinity and temperature gradients. Linear regression lines and Pearson’s coefficients (*p<0.05 and **p<0.005) are shown. Data points include the open Sound, Marina, WWTP, Chesapeake Bay, Sargasso Sea, Gulf of Mexico and Lake Lanier metagenomic samples. (TIF)

Abundance of antibiotic resistance gene sequences in environmental metagenomes with varying sequencing depth. These metagenomes represent a diverse mix of environments, including river sediment samples taken downstream from a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) processing high volumes of antibiotics [32], coastal surface water samples taken as part o...

Puget Sound 454 sequence reads with ≥80% similarity and an alignment length ≥50 amino acids to sequences within the expanded Antibiotic Resistance Genes Database (ARDB+). (PDF)

Plasmid sequences in the NCBI RefSeq database that match contigs from the Puget Sound and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent metagenomic datasets. (PDF)

Molecular techniques are an alternative to culturing and counting methods in quantifying indoor fungal contamination. Pyrosequencing offers the possibility of identifying unexpected indoor fungi. In this study, 50 house dust samples were collected from homes in the Yakima Valley, WA. Each sample was analyzed by quantitative PCR (QPCR) for 36 common...

Objective: To assess associations of protective workplace and home practices with pesticide exposure levels. Methods: Using data from orchard workers in the Yakima Valley, Washington, we examined associations of workplace and home protective practices with (1) urinary metabolite concentrations of dimethylthiophosphate (DMTP) in adults and childr...

The most prominent non-occupational source of exposure to methylmercury is the consumption of fish. In this study we examine a fish consuming population to determine the extent of temporal exposure and investigate the extent to which single time estimates of methylmercury exposure based on blood-Hg concentration can provide reliable estimates of lo...

The World Library of Toxicology, Chemical Safety, and Environmental Health, commonly referred to as the World Library of Toxicology (WLT), is a multilingual online portal of links to key global resources, representing a host of individual countries and multilateral organizations. The Site is designed as a network of, and gateway to, toxicological i...

Residential proximity to pesticide-treated farmland is an important pesticide exposure pathway. In-person interviews and biological samples were collected from 100 farmworker and 100 non-farmworker adults and children living in Eastern Washington State. We examined the relationship of residential proximity to farmland to urinary metabolite concentr...

The European cosmetics legislation foresees a review in 2011 and possible postponement of the 2013 marketing ban to enforce the testing ban for systemic and repeated-dose animal tests. For this purpose, a 119-page report commissioned by the European Commission was published recently. Here, a group of 17 independent experts from the US, Europe, and...

During brain development, cell death is a physiological process which allows the elimination of cells produced in excess. During adulthood, when there is no or little physiologic cell death, an increase in cell loss is usually caused by neurologic disorders or by exposure to neurotoxic chemicals. Measurements of cell death are often used a first li...

Toxicogenomic evaluations may improve toxicity prediction of in vitro-based developmental models, such as whole embryo culture (WEC) and embryonic stem cells (ESC), by providing a robust mechanistic marker which can be linked with responses associated with developmental toxicity in vivo. While promising in theory, toxicogenomic comparisons between...

This study characterized the within- and between-child variability in dimethylthiophosphate (DMTP) levels in the urine of 44 children living in an agricultural community in central Washington State in December 1997 and 1999. The goal of this analysis was to investigate these variability components during periods when organophosphate pesticides were...

The tumor suppressor oncoprotein, p53, is a critical regulator of stress-induced growth arrest and apoptosis. p53 activity is regulated through the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) with stress-induced disruption leading to increased accumulation of p53, resulting in growth arrest. In the present study, we investigate the role of p53 to determine s...

Organophosphate pesticides are commonly used in the United States, and farmworkers are at risk for chronic exposure. Using data from a community randomized trial to interrupt the take-home pathway of pesticide exposure, we examined the association between floor surface type (smooth floor, thin carpet, and thick carpet) and rooms in which dust sampl...

To understand the complex etiology of developmental disorders, an understanding of both genetic and environmental risk factors is needed. Human and rodent genetic studies have identified a multitude of gene candidates for specific developmental disorders such as neural tube defects (NTDs). With the emergence of toxicogenomic-based assessments, scie...