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October 2005 - July 2006
Publications
Publications (84)
Background
Airborne fine particulate matter with diameter < 2.5 μm (PM2.5), can reach the alveolar regions of the lungs, and is associated with over 4 million premature deaths per year worldwide. However, the source-specific consequences of PM2.5 exposure remain poorly understood. A major, but unregulated source is car brake wear, which exhaust emi...
Introduction: Airborne fine particulate matter (diameter <2.5μm; PM2.5) is associated with incidence and exacerbation of chronic respiratory diseases. Vehicle exhaust emissions have decreased but emissions of poorly characterised non-exhaust PM persist, the main source of which is brake wear (BWPM). However, source-specific effects of PM2.5 are poo...
Low-cost Particulate Matter (PM) sensors offer an excellent opportunity to improve our knowledge about this type of pollution. Their size and cost, which support multi-node network deployment, along with their temporal resolution, enable them to report fine spatio-temporal resolution for a given area. These sensors have known issues across performa...
Regulation of cutaneous immunity is severely compromised in inflammatory skin disease. To investigate the molecular crosstalk underpinning tolerance versus inflammation in atopic dermatitis, we utilise a human in vivo allergen challenge study, exposing atopic dermatitis patients to house dust mite. Here we analyse transcriptional programmes at the...
Introduction
Airborne fine particulate matter (diameter <2.5μm; PM2.5) is a leading risk factor for ill health and premature death. Road vehicle technology is decreasing exhaust-derived PM emissions but poorly characterised, unregulated non-exhaust PM persists. This study aimed to characterise the toxicology of brakewear PM2.5 (BWPM) from 4 brakepa...
Low-cost particulate matter (PM) sensors offer an excellent opportunity to improve our knowledge about this type of pollution. Their size and their cost, which support multi-node network deployment, along with their temporal resolution, enable them to report fine spatio-temporal resolution for a given area. These sensors have known issues across pe...
The city of Southampton is committed to monitoring and reducing outdoor air pollution, in particular, Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Particulate Matters (PM2.5/PM10), which have been linked with adverse health effects under short- or long-term exposure. This project investigates the air pollution contributed mainly by road sources, which consist of maj...
Particulate Matter (PM) low-cost sensors (LCS) present a cost-effective opportunity to improve the spatiotemporal resolution of airborne PM data. Previous studies focused on PM-LCS-reported hourly data and identified, without fully addressing, their limitations. However, PM-LCS provide measurements at finer temporal resolutions. Furthermore, govern...
Context:
Despite the fact that only around 40% of the world is directly exposed, household air pollution from biomass combustion (HAP) ranks fourth among all risk factors. Those in poor nations who cook with biomass or coal are the most affected. According to the most recent Comparative Risk Assessment of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), HAP fro...
In this review, the Basic and Translational Science Assembly of the European Respiratory Society provides an overview of the 2022 International Congress highlights. We discuss the consequences of respiratory events from birth until old age regarding climate change related alterations in air quality due to pollution caused by increased ozone, pollen...
In this review the Basic and Translational Science Assembly of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) provides an overview of the 2022 international conference highlights. We discuss the consequences of respiratory events from birth until old age regarding climate change-related alterations in air quality due to pollution caused by increased ozone,...
Respiratory diseases account for over 5 million deaths yearly and are a huge burden to health-care systems worldwide. Murine models have been of paramount importance to decode human lung biology in vivo, but their genetic, anatomical, physiological and immunological differences with humans significantly hamper successful translation of research int...
Introduction: Airborne fine particulate matter (diameter <2.5μm; PM2.5) is a leading risk factor for lung disease, but differential effects of PM2.5 from different sources are poorly understood. Improvements to vehicle exhaust technology have neglected poorly characterised, unregulated “non-exhaust” PM, predominantly brakewear (BWPM). This study ai...
Extracellular matrix (ECM) stiffening with downstream activation of mechanosensitive pathways is strongly implicated in fibrosis. We previously reported that altered collagen nanoarchitecture is a key determinant of pathogenetic ECM structure-function in human fibrosis (Jones et al., 2018). Here, through human tissue, bioinformatic and ex vivo stud...
Accurate regulation of cutaneous immunity is fundamental for human health and quality of life but is severely compromised in inflammatory skin disease. To investigate the molecular crosstalk underpinning tolerance vs inflammation in human skin, we set up a human in vivo allergen challenge study, exposing patients with atopic dermatitis (AD) to hous...
Extracellular matrix (ECM) stiffening with downstream activation of mechanosensitive pathways is strongly implicated in fibrosis. We previously reported that altered collagen nanoarchitecture is a key determinant of pathogenetic ECM structure-function in human fibrosis (Jones et al., 2018). Here, through human tissue, bioinformatic and ex vivo stud...
Deep learning has shown recent key breakthroughs in enabling particulate identification directly from scattering patterns. However, moving such a detector from a laboratory to a real-world environment means developing techniques for improving the neural network robustness. Here, a methodology for training data augmentation is proposed that is shown...
Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the main entry point in airway epithelial cells for SARS-CoV-2. ACE2 binding to the SARS-CoV-2 protein spike triggers viral fusion with the cell plasma membrane, resulting in viral RNA genome delivery into the host. Despite ACE2’s critical role in SARS-CoV-2 infection, full understanding of ACE2 expression,...
Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the main entry point in the airways for 47 SARS-CoV-2. ACE2 binding to SARS-CoV-2 protein Spike triggers viral fusion with the cell membrane, resulting in viral RNA genome delivery into the host. Despite ACE2’s critical role in SARS-CoV-2 infection, an understanding of ACE2 expression, including in response...
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
Airborne pollution particulates are associated with approximately 40,000 deaths per year in the UK. Specific types of particulates are thought to be more toxic to people with certain conditions, and hence precise identification of the numbers and types that are airborne at any particular place or time is a key strategy in reducing adverse health ef...
Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the main entry point in the airways for SARS-CoV-2. ACE2 binding to SARS-CoV-2 protein Spike triggers viral fusion with the cell membrane, resulting in viral RNA genome delivery into the host. Despite ACE2’s critical role in SARS-CoV-2 infection, an understanding of ACE2 expression, including in response to...
Image reconstruction of pollen grains was performed using neural networks, from light scattering patterns recorded with simultaneous irradiation at three laser wavelengths. The shapes of the reconstructed optical images using one network were shown to have a pixel accuracy on average of 98.9%. Two other neural networks were shown to be able to conv...
Airborne particulate matter (PM) exposure has been identified as a key environmental risk factor, associated especially with diseases of the respiratory and cardiovascular system and with almost 9 million premature deaths per year. Low-cost optical sensors for PM measurement are desirable for monitoring exposure closer to the personal level and par...
Airborne particulate matter (PM) is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity. However, understanding of the range and mechanisms of effects of PM components is poor. PM generated in underground railways is rich in metals, especially iron. In the ultrafine (UFPM; <0.1 µm diameter) fraction, the combination of small size and metal enrichment poses...
INTRODUCTION: Despite the London Underground (LU) handling on average 2.8 million passenger journeys per day, the characteristics and potential health effects of the elevated concentrations of metal-rich PM2.5 found in this subway system are not well understood.
METHODS: Spatial monitoring campaigns were carried out to characterise the health-rele...
We demonstrate the capability for the identification of single particles, via a neural
network, directly from the backscattered light collected by a 30-core optical fibre, when particles are illuminated using a single mode fibre-coupled laser light source. The neural network was shown to be able to determine the specific species of pollen with ~ 97...
Airborne particulate matter (PM) is a leading driver of premature mortality and cardiopulmonary morbidity, associated with exacerbations of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and lung cancer. The airway epithelium, as the principal site of PM deposition, is critical to the effects of, and initial respon...
Ships are major contributors to global emissions of air pollutants, with their health and environmental effects being of particular concern in port cities and heavily populated coastal areas adjacent to major shipping lanes. This paper outlines the international regulations tackling two such ship pollutants, being sulphur dioxide (SOx) and particul...
We demonstrate the application of deep learning for the identification of particles, directly from their backscattered light. The particles were illuminated using a single-mode fibre-coupled laser light source and the scattered light was collected by a 30-core optical fibre. The technique enabled identification of the specific species of pollen gra...
Visualizing structures smaller than the eye can see has been a driving force in scientific research since the invention of the optical microscope. Here, we use a network of neural networks to create a neural lens that has the ability to transform 20× optical microscope images into a resolution comparable to a 1500× scanning electron microscope imag...
Exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM) air pollution is a leading risk factor for morbidity and mortality, associated with up to 8.9 million deaths/year worldwide. Measurement of personal exposure to PM is hindered by poor spatial resolution of monitoring networks. Low-cost PM sensors may improve monitoring resolution in a cost-effective manne...
The identification of mixtures of particles in a solution via analysis of scattered light can be a complex task, due to the multiple scattering effects between different sizes and types of particles. Deep learning offers the capability for solving complex problems without the need for a physical understanding of the underlying system, and hence off...
Background
Exposure to ambient airborne particulate matter is a major risk factor for mortality and morbidity, associated with asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, myocardial infarction, and stroke, and more recently type 2 diabetes, dementia and loss of cognitive function. Less is understood about differential effects of particulate matter from dif...
COMEAP statement on the evidence of health effects on the travelling public from exposure to particulate matter in the London Underground.
![Particulate Matter (PM) sensors: Alphasense OPC-N2 [24], Plantower...](publication/330224108/figure/fig1/AS:11431281390352993@1745259050391/Particulate-Matter-PM-sensors-Alphasense-OPC-N2-24-Plantower-PMS5003-25_Q320.jpg)
Air Quality (AQ) is a very topical issue for many cities and has a direct impact on citizen health. The AQ of a large UK city is being investigated using low-cost Particulate Matter (PM) sensors, and the results obtained by these sensors have been compared with government operated AQ stations. In the first pilot deployment, six AQ Internet of Thing...
Ports are vital to the global economy, providing a range of local, regional, national, and international benefits. However they also give rise to negative impacts, which are often concentrated within the local area. Amongst these, maritime pollution of the air and water may have considerable consequences for the environment, as well as human health...
Particle pollution is a global health challenge that is linked to around three million premature deaths per year. There is therefore great interest in the development of sensors capable of precisely quantifying both the number and type of particles. Here, we demonstrate an approach that leverages machine learning in order to identify particulates d...
Air Quality (AQ) is a very topical issue for many cities and has a direct impact on the health of its citizens. We propose to investigate the air quality of a large UK city using low-cost Particulate Matter (PM) micro-sensors, and compare them with government operated air quality stations. In this pilot deployment we design and build six AQ IoT dev...
The comparison of a single experimental diffraction pattern with simulations produced using Mie theory enables the precise and simultaneous determination of size and complex refractive index of a polystyrene microbead. Results agree with tabulated values.
The bronchial epithelium is continuously exposed to a multitude of noxious challenges in inhaled air. Cellular contact with most damaging agents is reduced by the action of the mucociliary apparatus and by formation of a physical barrier that controls passage of ions and macromolecules. In conjunction with these defensive barrier functions, immunom...
CX3CL1 has been implicated in allergen-induced airway CD4+ T lymphocyte recruitment in asthma. Since epidemiological evidence supports a viral infection-allergen synergy in asthma exacerbations, we postulated that rhinovirus (RV) infection in the presence of allergen augments epithelial CX3CL1 release. Fully differentiated primary bronchial epithel...
Introduction
The epithelial and endothelial barriers of the airway mucosa are critical for regulation of tissue homeostasis and protection against pathogens or other tissue damaging agents. In response to a viral infection, epithelial cells must signal to the endothelium to initiate immune cell recruitment. This is a highly temporal regulated proce...
Figure S1. Poly(I:C) induces the release of TNF‐α by epithelial cells and fractalkine (CX3CL1) by endothelial cells. After 6 days in culture, mono‐ or co‐cultures were apically stimulated with 5 μg/ml Poly(I:C) for 24 h and the release of TNF‐α (A) or CX3CL1 (fractalkine) (B) into the basolateral compartment analyzed by ELISA. Mean ± SEM; n = 7–9 i...
Therapeutic options to treat virus-induced asthma exacerbations are limited and urgently needed. Therefore, we tested Pim1 kinase as potential therapeutic target in human rhinovirus (HRV) infections. We hypothesised that inhibition of Pim1 kinase reduces HRV replication by augmenting the interferon-induced anti-viral response due to increased activ...
We have previously shown that underground railway particulate matter (PM) is rich in iron and other transition metals across coarse (PM10-2.5), fine (PM2.5), and quasi-ultrafine (PM0.18) fractions, and is able to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, there is little knowledge of whether the metal-rich nature of such particles exerts toxi...
Asthma was previously defined as an allergic Th2‐mediated inflammatory immune disorder. Recently, this paradigm has been challenged because not all pathological changes observed in the asthmatic airways are adequately explained simply as a result of Th2‐mediated processes. Contemporary thought holds that asthma is a complex immune disorder involvin...
Sensitization and exposure to the allergenic fungus Alternaria alternata has been associated with increased risk of asthma and asthma exacerbations. The first cells to encounter inhaled allergens are epithelial cells at the airway mucosal surface. Epithelial barrier function has previously been reported to be defective in asthma. This study investi...
Alternaria extract induces a heat-labile increase in TNFα release from polarised 16HBE cells. Polarised 16HBE cells on Transwell inserts (n = 3–9) were challenged apically with Alternaria (Alt) or Cladosporium (Clad) fungal extracts. Apical and basolateral supernatants were harvested 24 h post-challenge. TNFα concentration was determined by ELISA....
Inhibitors of proteases and p38 MAPK have no significant effect on apical or basolateral TNFα release after fungal challenge. The effect of Alternaria (100 μg/ml) on 16HBE cells was tested alone or in the presence of AEBSF (250 μM), E-64 (50 μM), Pepstatin A (0.5 μg/ml) or SB203580 (25 μM) (n = 3–8). TNFα release 24 h post-challenge was calculated...
The increase in IL-8 release in healthy donor ALI cultures is driven by increased basolateral release of IL-8. ALI cultures from healthy (n = 8–12) or severely asthmatic (n = 6–7) donors were differentiated at air-liquid interface, prior to challenge with Alternaria (Alt) 400 µg/ml. IL-8 release 24 h post-challenge was determined by ELISA. Lines re...
PBEC donor information. Clinical characterisation of the donors of the bronchial epithelial cells used in this work. FEV1% – forced expiratory volume in 1 second, as a percentage of predicted value; ICS – inhaled corticosteroid (dose as equivalent to micrograms per day Beclometasone dipropionate); LABA = long acting β2-adrenoceptor agonist; anti-le...
Alternaria-induced drop in TER is sensitive to inhibition of cysteine protease and p38 MAPK. The effect of Alternaria (100 μg/ml) on 16HBE cells was tested alone or in the presence of AEBSF (250 μM), E-64 (50 μM), Pepstatin A (0.5 μg/ml) or SB203580 (25 μM) (n = 3–6). TER was measured at 1 h and 24 h post-challenge, calculated as percentage change...
Alternaria extract induces a dose-dependent decrease in 16HBE TER. TER was measured before fungal challenge of polarised 16HBE cells, and at regular intervals up to 24 h thereafter (n = 4–15). Graph shows TER of polarised 16HBE cultures in medium alone (▴), or with Alternaria extract at 50 (•) and 100 μl/ml (♦), expressed as percentage change from...
Alternaria extract increases epithelial macromolecular permeability. Polarised 16HBE cells on Transwell inserts were challenged with medium, Alt50, Alt100 (all n = 4), Alt100HT, Clad100, or EGTA (n = 2) 1 h before addition of 2 mg/ml 4 kDA FITC-dextran. After 24 h challenge, basolateral FITC-dextran concentration was determined fluorimetrically. An...
Alternaria challenge does not affect basolateral release of TSLP in healthy or severely asthmatic donor ALI cultures. ALI cultures from healthy (n = 7–12) or severely asthmatic (n = 6–7) donors were differentiated at air-liquid interface, prior to challenge with Alternaria (Alt) or Cladosporium (Clad) fungal extracts. TSLP release 24 h post-challen...
Underground railway stations are known to have elevated particulate matter (PM) loads compared to ambient air. As these particles are derived from metal-rich sources and transition metals may pose a risk to health by virtue of their ability to catalyze generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), their potential enrichment in underground environmen...
The long-acting beta(2)-adrenoceptor agonist, indacaterol, has been developed as a bronchodilator for the therapeutic management of respiratory diseases. The aim of the present study was to determine whether indacaterol has any anti-inflammatory activity. To this end, the effects of indacaterol on human lung mast cell responses were investigated.
T...
Questions
Questions (2)
Does anyone have experience with the Leland Legacy air sampling pump (10L/min) and also something with a lower flow rate such as a SKC AirChek (1-5L/min)? Specifically, the tradeoff between noise and sampling rate - is the Legacy so noisy that it couldn't be used at home/in an office? It is obviously better from a PM mass collection viewpoint, but we also need something which runs quietly enough to be used at home or in other locations where it won't cause disturbance.
I'm planning on exposing epithelial cells to particulate matter, and measuring cell death/viability. I will be using LDH assay on the supernatant, but for a second readout, I would like to use MTT/XTT/MTS/WST-1 to get a readout on a plate reader. All seem to be very chemically similar and work on the same principle of reduction, and all seem to be widely used in the literature, with no obvious reason why some groups use one and other groups use another. I understand that using MTT requires an extra step to solubilise the reaction product before reading, but otherwise, are there any differences? I'm having trouble working out which to use, so any help would be very gratefully received.
